
iiliili I 



Class 




Book_^ 



Copyright N°. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 




Early Days 

in 

Old Oredon 




'■It- ^'U'' 



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By 

KATHARINE BERRY JUDSON, M.A. 

Author of "Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest," 

"Myths and Legends of the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes," 

"Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest," etc. 



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WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 
AND FOUR MAPS 







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CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG ^ CO. 

1916 



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Copyright 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 

1916 



Published June, 1916 



Copyrighted in Great Britain 



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JUL -I 1916 

©CI.A431718 



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/^LD OREGON was a mighty sweep of country, and 
a most romantic one. From the northern border 
of Mexican California to near Sitka in Russian America it 
stretched, nearly eight hundred miles. Eastv/ard it stretched 
over a country of mighty mountain ranges from which at 
regular intervals rose the snow peaks, ever glistening 
white, over a country of dense forests, of mighty rivers 
and foaming mountain torrents, over a country of sand 
and sagebrush, and on still eastward over the cut-rock 
desert where "men had songs for supper" and where 
no game could live, on and on eastward nearly a thou- 
sand miles until the limits of the Oregon country, at 
the crest of the main range of the Rockies, met the 
old-time, unknown Louisiana. 

The romance ever lingers. Still, as one stands on the 
green prairie at Fort Vancouver, for so many years the 
center of civilization on the lonely coast of Oregon, one 
hears echoes of the Brigade of Boats coming down the Co- 
lumbia ; still one hears the gay voices of the voyageurs sing- 
ing in time to the dip of the paddle. Romance still lingers 
in vague tales of the blue-coated, brass-buttoned Hudson's 
Bay Company men who followed the forest trails. Ro- 
mance still lingers at old Fort Astoria, where a replica of 



PREFACE 

the famous old fort — a tiny thing for a protection in the 
wilderness — has been built in memory of the old days of 
a century ago. 

"When my grandfather came across the plains" — 
even now one hears that remark; and romance brings to 
sight the long line of white-winged prairie schooners wind- 
ing their slow way over the endless green waves of the 
prairies, then over the long level of the plains, and the 
crashing and bumping as they plunged up and down the 
mountain sides — bound for Oregon. 

But what do the children of the present day know 
of the days of these grandfathers? What books have 
they to tell them of the old romance? None whatever. 
They know only that which they glean from someone 
else's remembrance of what their grandfathers said. One 
or two time-table histories, written entirely from secondary 
sources, and with many faulty statements, especially with 
regard to the claims of the British and Americans to the 
Old Oregon country — that is all they have. 

I have given four years of devoted study to Oregon 
history, three of them among the special collections of 
the Northwest, and over a year in London. In Eng- 
land I had full access to the documents of the Public 
Record Office, including unpublished accounts of the 
various explorations, and also, what was a far rarer 
privilege, access to the journals, diaries, and letters of 
the Hudson's Bay Company. 

Simple as this book is, every statement is based on 
original authority. Comment on the British and Amer- 



PREFACE 

lean claims to the country Is founded entirely upon 
sources. These sources Include journals written by 
fur-traders In the mountains and on the march, private 
letters between themselves, official reports of chief factors 
to their Company in London, diplomatic correspondence 
of American and English diplomats, and published works, 
in original editions, of exploration and discovery. 

It has been my aim to make this volume a clear, straight- 
forward account of the romantic discovery and settlement 
of Old Oregon, especially intended for children. Yet 
teachers of much higher grades, and perchance even those 
in college work, will find in the "Summary" at the end, 
as well as in the two chapters, "Who Owned the Oregon 
Country," and "Fort Vancouver and Dr. John McLough- 
lin," material from sources which have never before been 
made accessible. 

K. B. J. 
Sub-Librarian of History, 

New York State Library, 
Albany, N. Y. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I The First White Man's Ship i 

II Captain Cook's Adventures 5 

III Captain Meares at Nootka Sound. Launching of 

the Nort Invest America 13 

IV The Battle in the Straits of San Juan de Fuca . . 22 
V When Captain Gray Crossed the Terrible Bar . . 25 

VI The Adventures of Lewis and Clark 31 

VII How They Built Astoria 47 

VIII That " Indian " Thief 58 

IX An Exciting Horse Race 66 

X Adventures in the Yakima Valley 72 

XI Danger at Fort Walla Walla .- 83 

XII Fort Vancouver and Dr. John McLoughlin ... 96 

XIII The First Apple in the Oregon Country .... no 

XIV The Adventures of the Whitmans 113 

XV The Oregon Trail 127 

XVI Who Owned the "Oregon Country"? .... 143 

XVII Through the Nachess Pass 167 

XVIII The Beginnings of Cities 178 

XIX Early Adventures in Seattle 188 

XX The Life of the Children 197 

XXI The Great Council at Walla Walla 205 

XXII The Battle of Seattle 216 

XXIII How the Indians Lived 224 

Appendix — A Brief Summary of the History of the 

Old Oregon Country from Original Sources . . 237 

Bibliography 253 

Index 261 



JUufitrattona 

PAGE . 

A Blackfeet Indian travois Frontispiece '^ 

Captain Meares in San Juan de Fuca Straits 22 \/^ 

Launching of the Northwest America 22 t^ 

The Lewis and Clark line of exploration 41 1^ 

Fort Okanogan 56 ^ 

An Indian buffalo hunt 56 '^ 

Indians stalking buffalo 74 ^ 

Reclaiming Eastern Oregon 74 \/^ 

A war party 90 >^ 

An Indian dance 90 >^ 

Falls of the Willamette 126 

The Oregon Country 128 

The Dalles 142 

The Willamette Valley 150 

Mt. Hood from The Dalles of the Columbia 150 

Old Oregon and the disputed section 157 

American pioneer cabin 178 

Oregon City in early days 178 

Oregon City in 1845 179 

Hauling the logs 182 

Transportation by ox team 182 

The fallen monarch of the woods 183 

Ocean-going log raft 183 

Snoqualmie Falls, Washington 204 

Indian houses 226 

An Indian canoe tomb 226 

Mt. Rainier 236 



Early Days in Old Oregon 

CHAPTER I 

THE FIRST WHITE MAN^S SHIP 

AN Indian woman was one day walking along the 
shore, near Seaside, Oregon, on her way back to the 
Clatsop village. Her son had been killed in battle the 
year before, and she often walked along this beach, wailing 
for him, as Indians wail for their dead. Suddenly she 
saw something lying on the beach. She thought it might 
be a whale and went toward it, because at that point her 
tribe caught many whales. When she came near it, she 
saw two trees standing up in this Thing. She thought: 
"Behold! It is no whale! It is a monster!" 

Then she reached that Thing that lay on the beach. 
All the outside was shining, as copper shines. Ropes were 
tied to those trees, and there were many pieces of iron 
sticking into it.^ Then a bear came out of it. He stood 
on the Thing, near the trees. He looked just like a bear, 
yet his face was like that of a man. 

The woman was amazed. She thought this strange 
Thing had come from the Ghost-Land, because Indians 
believe In ghosts. So she at once turned away and went 



* Indians along the Northwest Coast used to pull out with their 
teeth from the planking of a ship any nails which had become at all 
loosened, so eager were they for metal. 

[I] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

home, for she was afraid. As she walked on, she began 
to weep for her dead son. She wailed, "Oh, my son is 
dead, and the Thing we hear about in tales is lying on the 
beach!" 

As she neared the Clatsop village, her people heard the 
long, wailing cry. The Clatsops said, " Oh, a person comes 
crying! Perhaps someone has struck her!" They took 
down their bows and arrows, thinking an enemy must be 
near. 

An old man said, "Listen!" 

The Indian woman was still weeping. She wailed, "Oh, 
my son is dead, and the Thing we hear about in tales is 
lying on the beach ! " 

The Indians said, "What can it be?" They went run- 
ning toward her, and said, "What is it?" 

The woman replied, "A Thing lies on the beach. And 
there are two bears in it; but they look like people." 

At once the warriors ran down the beach to this Thing. 
There it lay! Then the two "bears" came out of it with 
copper kettles in their hands. They put their hands to 
their mouths and pointed inland, giving their kettles to 
the Indians. They were asking for water. 

S. me of the Indians took the kettles and ran inland to 
a spring or stream, but others hid themselves behind logs 
because they were afraid. A few were brave enough, 
however, to climb up into this Thing. They found it like 
a very large canoe, and when they went down inside it 
seemed full of boxes. One man who went down into the 
hold found there a string of brass buttons. Brass buttons 

[2] 



THE FIRST WHITE MAN'S SHIP 

had great value to his tribe, and he excitedly went outside 
to call his relatives. But they had already set the ship 
on fire. They burned this ship because they wanted the 
metal In It. 

All the Indians along the Northwest Coast knew metal 

— knew brass, and iron, and copper — and were very eager 
for It. Where they learned about it no one knows, for 
the earliest explorers found them willing to trade furs for 
bits of metal of any kind. When, therefore, they saw this 
ship, with its copper bottom and the nails in it, and the 
ironwork in the ropes, they at once set it afire to get the 
metal. It burned to the water's edge In a very short time 

— burned just like fat, so the Indians said. 

The Clatsop Indians also made prisoners of the two 
"bears." They looked at them very hard. One of the 
chiefs went up to them as they stood on the beach. He 
looked at their faces. He looked at their hands, and then 
put out his own hand. Soon he said to his people that 
they were not bears, but men. The Indians had thought 
they were bears because they were bearded men. No 
Indian ever wears a mustache or a beard — at least not 
until he becomes civilized. 

There was great excitement among the near-by tribes 
when they heard about the strange canoe with two trees In 
It, and all the metal. Other tribes wanted some of it. 
They came down in their canoes and began trading. Much 
of the metal was used for ornaments, for bracelets and 
anklets and great heavy eardrops. A strip of copper two 
fingers wide and long enough to go around the arm was 

[3] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

valuable enough to buy a slave. A nail would buy a good 
dressed deerskin. Several nails would buy a string of 
hiaqua shells, which were the Indian money. 

The two sailors, of course, were made slaves. The 
Clatsop chief thought he ought to have both of them, but 
the Willapa chief demanded one, and the tribes almost 
went to war over it. At last the Willapa chief took one 
slave, and the Clatsop chief kept the other. 

Whose ship was this? No one knows. Ships were 
blown across the ocean from Japan, but it does not seem 
likely these men were Japanese. They might have been 
Spaniards, or possibly Englishmen. Indeed, no one would 
ever have known anything at all about this ship except 
that when the white men came into Oregon, the Indians 
themselves told them the story of this Thing which lay on 
the beach many, many years before. 



[4] 



CHAPTER II 

CAPTAIN cook's ADVENTURES 

DOWN from the north came a rip-roaring wind, and 
the two little sailing ships that, in March, 1778, 
were off the Oregon coast had to turn and run. Reef 
their sails and scud before the mighty blasts — that was 
all captains could do in those days. The ships were very 
small. Without steam power, the wind blew them this 
way and that; and wind and tide together often sent them 
crashing on the rocks amidst roaring breakers. 

So Captain Cook's two sailing ships, the Resolution and 
the Discovery, went scudding to the south, under bare 
poles, while the Storm King of the North blew the waves 
of the Pacific mountain-high. Then when the storm was 
over, the doughty captain unfurled his sails and let another 
breeze blow him north again. But squalls came, so tack- 
ing was necessary. Captain Cook had to stay far out at 
sea lest the wind and tide should send him among the 
white-capped breakers he saw through his telescope on the 
Oregon shore. "Our ships complained," wrote one of 
the officers of the creaking, groaning ships, blown by high 
winds and waves. 

Stop and think of the date. It was 1778. Over on 
the North Atlantic coast the American colonies were fight- 

[5] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

ing the Revolutionary War with Great Britain. But of 
the North Pacific coast no one knew anything at all. It 
is true a few Spanish explorers had been sent up this coast, 
but their reports were poor. Worse yet, they had not 
been printed; so the world knew little enough about the 
Spanish explorations on this coast. 

We know now, however, that one Spanish explorer was 
sure he saw a river mouth, or a "bay," on that North 
Pacific coast. There were sand bars across the mouth of 
this bay, and the waves broke high over them. He did not 
dare to cross the bar. Still, he named it the Rio San 
Roque; that is, the River of Saint Roque. 

Besides this rather uncertain river, it was thought that 
there was an inlet, or strait, somewhere along this coast. 
All that anyone knew was that some two hundred years 
before, in 1592, an old Portuguese named Juan de Fuca 
had said that he had been in this part of the world, and 
that there was an inlet there which connected the Atlantic 
Ocean with the Pacific. But no one else had ever seen it, 
and no one knows to this day whether Juan de Fuca really 
saw those straits or not. 

All nations were looking at this time for an inlet called 
the "Straits of Anian" — some water passage between the 
two great oceans which lie east and west of America. No 
such straits ever existed. Yet not many years ago an 
Arctic explorer found straits far north leading into the 
Arctic Ocean, so that a ship actually can go from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific now, if it goes by way of the 
icebergs and bitter cold of the Arctic Ocean. 

[6] 



CAPTAIN COOK'S ADVENTURES 

Now, Captain Cook had been sent out to look for these 
straits, and also to look for a rumored " River of the 
West" which the Indians said flowed toward the setting 
sun and emptied Into the Bitter Waters. That was why 
he watched the shore so closely with his spyglass. All he 
could see of Oregon was that it was hilly, covered with 
trees, with low valleys between. But he could see no 
river. As he sailed farther north, he thought he saw a 
broad stretch of water leading toward the east. At first 
he flattered himself he had found those straits. Then he 
decided It was only a low, marshy land. But he was so 
disappointed that he called a projecting point of land Cape 
Flattery — and Cape Flattery It Is today, on the southern 
shore of the Straits of San Juan de Fuca. 

On he sailed northward, this time with a breeze from the 
south, until he found himself at the entrance of a large 
sound. Just at sunset the ship sailed in. So far as 
Captain Cook knew, It had no name, so he called it King 
George's Sound, although it was later called Nootka Sound. 
Yet the Spanish had already seen it and they had called 
It San Lorenzo. 

Nootka Sound was a beautiful place after weeks on the 
stormy ocean with those "complaining" ships. The sun 
was shining and the sky was blue. The water rippled 
softly on many little Islands, which were fresh and green 
in the early spring. On the shore were dense forests of 
tall straight trees which came down to the water's edge. 
The water was too deep to anchor. The sailors tied the 
ships to the trees with great hawsers. 

[7] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

The Indians had been watching them, but paid little 
attention to them that evening, though many canoes pad- 
dled around them. The next day they welcomed the ship 
in great state. Three canoes first came out. In the fore- 
most were ten men, in the second six, and in the last were 
two. All were dressed in long robes of sea-otter skins, 
reaching from their necks to their knees. There were no 
sleeves of course. The robes were only skins fastened 
together. Their faces and legs were painted with red 
and black, in stripes and squares. Their long black hair 
was bunched up in club fashion on the top of their heads, 
and mixed in with it were spruce twigs. The green leaves 
of the spruce showed through the black hair. Over all 
this, downy white feathers were strewed. An English boy, 
who was a prisoner among them some years later, tells us 
exactly how they dressed when visitors came. 

As these canoes neared the ship, a chief arose in the 
foremost one to make a speech. He had a rattle in his 
hand which he shook when he talked. He talked a long 
time, indeed, in a very loud voice, and strewed the water 
about him with downy white feathers. That was a cere- 
mony of welcome. Other Indians in the two canoes 
behind him strewed the water with a reddish powder. 
By all this, the Englishmen understood they were invited 
to come on shore. 

When the first chief became tired, another arose and 
talked in the same loud tone, still motioning the white men 
to the shore. These Indians were not in the least afraid 
of their white visitors. Then after a while the men began 

[8] 



CAPTAIN COOK'S ADVENTURES 

to sing one of their songs. It was a soft, pleasing melody, 
sung in perfect time, and they kept time to it by striking 
the canoes with their paddles. 

The English planned to stay in this pleasant harbor for 
a while. They needed fresh water and new masts; they 
needed also fresh meat, such as game and fish, and vegeta- 
bles or greens of some kind. Besides this, the ships were 
going into the Alaskan waters where it was bitterly cold. 
When they saw the Indians with many furs they began to 
trade for them, for the men would need warm clothing and 
warm bedding such as bearskin rugs. 

When Cook and his officers began to trade for furs, to 
their astonishment the Indians would not accept as payment 
the bells and beads and looking glasses which the South 
Sea Islanders and the Hawaiians had taken. Nothing was 
accepted by these Nootka Sound Indians but metal. Like 
the Indians who burned the first white men's ship they 
saw for the metal in it, so these red men were eager for 
brass and copper and iron. And for a little metal they 
were willing to give many furs. 

You can guess what happened. The sailors sold the 
metal buttons off their coats; the brass handles were taken 
off their bureaus; candlesticks, tin cans, copper kettles, 
small knives, bits of Iron, everything that was metal on 
the ship was sold to the Indians for furs. And some 
things were not sold; for the Indians would steal many 
bits they could not buy. They cut the blocks out of the 
tackle; even heavy iron pieces were cut from the ropes 
and tossed to a near-by canoe. 

[9] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

They were clever thieves, the captain said. One Indian 
would talk to the sentinel on duty, while another, at a 
little distance, would pull the ironwork off and toss it 
overboard to some friend. 

But the Indians sold quantities of furs of all kinds — 
wolf, bear, fox, deer, marten, and many others, besides 
the beautiful sea otter skins and robes. The sailors 
bought more than they needed because the Indians were 
so eager to sell; and they knew that at least they would 
be warm in the north. 

So when all repairs were made, new spars put in place, 
fresh water in all the water casks, fresh game and fish on 
board for a few days, the men rested by their stay on 
land, and all was ready, the two little ships sailed out of 
the harbor northward. 

After a long time in the north, exploring, they went 
over on the Asiatic side. There, at Kamschatka, they 
found Russian fur traders who wanted to buy their furs. 
As Captain Cook was going to China then, the men and 
sailors did not need the furs longer and many were sold 
to the Russians. But the sailors did not know the value 
of these furs and did not ask high prices. Besides there 
were no shops in which to spend the money, and they did 
not know what to do with it. Russian silver roubles 
seemed of so little value that these pieces of money were 
kicked about the decks like chips of wood. 

Then the ships sailed southward and some time after 
reached China. 

Now the Chinese were just as anxious for those furs as 

[10] 



CAPTAIN COOK'S ADVENTURES 

the Indians of Nootka Sound had been for bits of metal. 
The sailors were amazed at the prices paid to them, and 
yet very few of the furs were perfect. Some had been 
used for blankets in their bunks, some were partly worn 
when they bought them from the natives, and others again 
had been worn on deck and were spotted with tar and 
grease. Yet the Chinese bought them. 

Now when the sailors learned the high value of the 
furs, they were eager to return to Nootka Sound for more. 
They could make their fortunes so easily! They almost 
mutinied when the officers refused to allow them to go 
back. But this was a royal exploring expedition, not a 
fur-trading voyage. So back to London they went, arriv- 
ing there in 1780. 

Captain Cook had been killed at the Sandwich Islands, 
but the journals of the expedition were published at once. 
Besides that, the sailors told everyone they met of the 
great wealth to be secured by trading with the Indians at 
Nootka Sound — how the Indians would sell furs for bits 
of metal, and the Chinese would pay high prices for the 
furs. That was the beginning of the fur trade along the 
north Pacific coast. 

Soon after these journals were published, ships began 
to go to Nootka Sound for furs. The first were English 
ships sailing from India and China. Captain Meares, of 
whom we will hear later, was an English trader from 
India. Immediately after, Yankee captains began to go 
from Boston and from other cities on the north Atlantic 
coast. The Revolutionary War was over and the vessels 

[II] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

were almost Idle. Captain Robert Gray was one of these 
New England captains. Both he and Captain Meares 
had some interesting adventures, as the next few chapters 
will show. 



[12] 



CHAPTER III 

CAPTAIN MEARES AT NOOTKA SOUND. LAUNCHING OF 
THE "northwest AMERICA" 

ON a bright May day in 1788 two little trading ships 
sailed Into Nootka Sound. It was just ten years 
after Captain Cook, with his two exploring ships, had 
entered this same Sound. All the world by this time knew 
about this fur trade, and ships were beginning to go up the 
Northwest Coast of America on trading voyages. 

The larger of these two trading ships was commanded 
by Captain John Meares, though both were owned by 
his company and under his control. This was the cap- 
tain's second voyage. His first had been up to Alaska, 
where he had been caught in the ice all winter and with 
all his men had come near dying from the cold. But two 
other English captains had found him there and helped 
him out. 

On his way south in that first voyage, after getting out 
of the ice, Meares had stopped at Nootka Sound, and 
again at the Sandwich Islands, as the Hawaiian Islands 
were then called. At Nootka Sound he found a chief called 
Co-me-ke-la, a brother of the great chief Maqulnna, who 
wanted to see the world. Meares took Co-me-ke-la on 
board. At Oahu he found a Sandwich Island chief, 

[13] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Tianna, who also wanted to go sight-seeing. So Meares 
took him also and they sailed away for China. 

Now, on this bright May day in 1788, Captain Meares 
was entering Nootka Sound on his second fur-trading 
voyage, and Co-me-ke-la and Tianna were both on board; 
so were many Chinese carpenters. His crew were Lascars 
from the Asiatic coast. Meares had a curious shipload 
with him. 

They came to anchor In that same Friendly Cove in the 
Sound where Captain Cook had found shelter ten years 
before. Maqulnna, the chief, came to welcome him with 
all his people. Captain Meares went on shore. He said 
Co-me-ke-la would shortly land. So the Indians all stood 
about to see this much-traveled chief. 

When he did step off shipboard, he was a wonderfully 
dressed Indian. His tribesmen gasped with astonishment. 
Co-me-ke-la wore a red military coat, with many brass 
buttons on It. On his head was a turned-back military 
hat with a big bright cockade on It. His shirt was linen 
and his trousers of dark cloth. But the most wonderful 
thing was this: many scraps of bright copper, gleaming 
like gold — pieces which he had begged and stolen — were 
fastened all over that bright red coat. A half sheet of 
shining copper formed a breastplate. Copper ornaments 
hung from his ears. His hair was long and black and 
braided. Fastened to this long black queue were so many 
copper handles from sauce-pans and frying-pans that he 
could not bend his head. By their weight and stiffness 
they bent his head back until his neck ached, and he was 

[14] 



LAUNCHING OF "NORTHWEST AMERICA" 

most laughable to look at. Last of all, he had taken out 
of the cook's galley, after a real fight with the cook, a 
great steel meat-spit — a spit on which the cook roasted 
his meats before the open fire. Oh, Co-me-ke-la was a 
wonderfully dressed chief! The Indians thought him 
gorgeous. But who shall say what the cook thought, when 
he looked at the pile of sauce-pans and frying-pans with 
the handles all broken squarely off, or when he wanted to 
roast his meats? 

Tianna was also finely dressed, but he was only a 
Sandwich Islander and these Nootka Indians did not care 
anything about him. 

Captain Meares began to build a house, after Chief 
Maquinna said he might, so the Chinese carpenters, with 
their funny blue blouses and their long black queues, clam- 
bered down off the ship and landed on the island. What 
Meares really wanted was a trading post, where his men 
could live and buy furs from the Indians; but as a fur- 
trading fort it was very different from those which the 
great fur companies built in after years. 

Captain Meares's house had two stories. On the 
ground floor were to be stored the furs, the rope and sails 
and ships' stores, besides the food supplies. In the 
second story were sleeping rooms for the men and for 
the officers, and also a large dining-room. Then a low 
barricade of brushwood and logs was put around the 
house, so that Indians could not surprise it too easily. 
But of course if they had wanted to fight, the fort would 
not have stood long. 

[15] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

After the house was finished, the Chinese carpenters 
were put to work building a small ship, of forty or fifty 
tons. This was to be a "coaster" — to run into and out 
of little harbors and creeks along the coast and buy furs 
at the Indian villages. While they were building this, 
Captain Meares sent the smaller of his two sailing ships 
north to explore and buy furs, while he went south in the 
larger one to do the same thing. Chief Maquinna said 
he would take care of the carpenters and the few white 
men left behind. 

Coasting slowly southward, on a pleasant June day 
in 1788, Captain Meares came to the entrance of a great 
inlet. It stretched far to the eastward, and one could not 
see land at the other end. It had been seen the year 
before by Captain Barkeley, who named it, told other cap- 
tains about it, and wrote about it in his log book. Captain 
Barkeley thought it might be the Straits of Juan de Fuca; 
he also called this broad inlet by that name. Both 
captains thought this inlet must lead either straight across 
to the Atlantic Ocean, or else connect with rivers that 
emptied Into that ocean. Look at the map and see if it 
does this. 

This was the very same inlet which Captain Cook had 
looked for, but could not see. He thought it low marshy 
ground. 

The breeze blew Captain Meares slowly southward, 
until, near Cape Flattery, he came to a rocky island. 
Canoes soon were all about them, filled with savage- 
looking redskins. The faces of these men were grim 

[16] 



LAUNCHING OF "NORTHWEST AMERICA" 

enough, but red and black ochre and whale oil made them 
grimmer yet. Their large canoes held from twenty to 
thirty men, and each warrior was armed with bow and 
arrows, the arrows tipped with bits of ragged bone. Their 
large spears were also tipped with knife-like edges of 
mussel shell. Yet these savage, red-painted, oily Indians 
wore superb robes of beautiful sea otter skins, which 
they refused at all times to sell. 

The chief's name was Tatoosh, and his name was given 
to this rocky island. He came on board, a surly-looking 
fellow, not at all like the handsome, dignified Indian 
chiefs of many of the land tribes. Meares made gifts to 
him. The surly Tatoosh did not even thank the Eng- 
lishman, let alone returning gift for gift, as was the 
Indian custom. More than that, he would not allow any 
of his people to sell furs to the traders. 

The captain looked about him. It was a wild scene. 
This little island was crowded and swarming with Indians, 
yet aside from fishing there could be no way of getting 
food. Even roots would not grow on these barren rocks. 
The surf beat on the rocky shores of the straits, both 
north and south. Above the dense black forests, which 
came down almost to the water's edge, rose the snowy 
ridge of the Olympic Mountains. 

Captain Meares sent the longboat to find an anchoring 
place, as he wanted to trade for sea otter robes. But at 
once war canoes gathered around the longboat, while 
Indians tried to jump Into it and steal the small trading 
articles lying there. They jeered at the sailors, who 

[17] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

were so enraged they wanted to fight. But the officer 
kept them quiet, else perhaps not a man on either the 
ship or in the longboat might have escaped. The boat 
was recalled immediately. 

But now the breeze had died down. Meares spread 
his sails and hoped to go farther south, but the sails hung 
lifeless. The next morning the ship was not four hun- 
dred feet from where it had been the night before. 
Tatoosh and his warriors, four hundred strong, came out 
in their war canoes and paddled around and around the 
ship. They seemed to admire it very much, but the 
captain took pains not to invite any of them on board. 
Then the Indians began to sing. It was a simple little 
melody, yet sung in exact time, and with so many voices, 
in the open air, it was very sweet. It almost made the 
Englishmen homesick. 

At noon the breeze sprang up. The captain sailed 
southward. He tried to enter Shoalwater Bay, but the 
water was too shallow on the bar. Then he sailed on 
until he came to what seemed to be an opening in the 
coast, like a river. He saw what might be a bay, or 
perhaps a river mouth. 

The bay was shut off from the ocean by long sand 
bars. Tremendous waves thundered over the bar. The 
great whitecaps were dangerous to any sailing ship. Cap- 
tain Meares steered in toward this "bay." But the 
water began to grow shallow. 

" Nine fathoms," called the men with the sounding 
leads. "Eight fathoms," they called. Still it grew shal- 

[i8] 



LAUNCHING OF "NORTHWEST AMERICA" 

lower. "Seven fathoms," they shouted — and the breakers 
were right ahead. Captain Meares steered out. He was 
so disappointed that he called a high cape on the north 
side of the bay Cape Disappointment. The "bay" he 
called Deception Bay because he had been deceived — so 
he thought — into believing it might be a river mouth. 
Then he said in his log book, without the slightest respect 
for English grammar, "We can now wnth safety assert 
that there is no such river as that of Saint Roc exists, as 
laid down in the Spanish charts." Then the ungram- 
matical captain turned around and sailed back to Nootka 
Sound. 

This happened four years before Captain Robert Gray, 
from Boston, daringly sailed into that "bay" and found 
it was the mouth of the Columbia River. But the name 
Cape Disappointment sticks to that headland even today. 

When Captain Meares reached Nootka Sound again he 
was much pleased to find the new little coasting vessel, the 
Northwest America, almost ready for launching. Every- 
thing was all right. The Indians had been friendly. They 
had even made a trail through the rough forest, because 
the trees which the Chinese carpenters needed for building 
that little ship were back in the woods. The trees near by 
were too large. 

But in the Sound also were Americans, just out from 
Boston. Captain Robert Gray, in the Lady fVashington, 
was there when Meares arrived; and shortly after. Cap- 
tain John Kendrick, of the Columbia, sailed in. And 
these Americans were much surprised to find, on that wild, 

[19] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

lonely shore, Chinese carpenters hard at work building a 
ship, while a house flying the British flag stood on the 
shore. 

At last, late in September that same year, 1788, the 
Northwest America was ready for launching. The British 
flag was hoisted and the tide was at just the right height. 
Maquinna and Co-me-ke-la, with all their wild tribesmen, 
had come from their winter houses back in the forest. 
Tianna, the Sandwich Island chief, was on board the new 
ship. Hawaiians live in the water, like ducks, and Tianna 
thought this was good fun. 

A gun was fired. The carpenters knocked down the 
props, and like a shot the little ship started from the 
ways. She slipped into the water with such speed, and 
dashed across the harbor so wildly, that she ran halfway 
out toward the open ocean. Nobody there knew much 
about launching a ship. Captain Meares says he did not, 
and no one would expect It of Chinese carpenters. So they 
entirely forgot to put a cable and anchor on her. But she 
had no sails yet, so small boats went out and towed her 
back to the dock. 

Tianna, on board, was much pleased. He capered 
about on deck as she dashed across the little cove, clapping 
his hands gleefully and shouting, "Mighty! Mighty!" 

And so was launched the first ship built on the North- 
west Coast of America — the country had no other name 
yet — and It was a curious scene. 

It was a fur-trading ship, built by Chinese carpenters 
for an English captain, who, with his Lascar crew, often 

[20] 



LAUNCHING OF "NORTHWEST AMERICA" 

sailed under the Portuguese flag. It was built on a wild, 
lonely shore, uninhabited by white people, and launched 
under the surprised eyes of Yankees just out from Boston, 
and of Nootka Sound chiefs with all their red-painted 
followers; and It had on board, as It dashed Into the 
water, a Sandwich Island chief who was fond of travel 
and wanted to see the world. 



[21] 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BATTLE IN THE STRAITS OF SAN JUAN DE FUCA 

CAPTAIN BARKELEY was the first man to see the 
Straits of San Juan de Fuca, so far as we know, 
and Barkeley named them, since he knew of that old Por- 
tuguese sailor who claimed to have seen such straits on the 
western coast of America. Captain Meares claimed that 
he himself named them, but this is Incorrect. 

But just before going north to launch the Northwest 
America, that late summer of 1788, Captain Meares 
sailed his ship into a harbor just north of the Straits, and 
sent the longboat with one officer and thirteen men to 
explore the Inlet. Did It lead to the Atlantic Ocean? 
How far away was the Atlantic Ocean from the point 
where they were? Or did this inlet lead to Hudson Bay, 
or to some river which emptied into the Atlantic Ocean? 
No one knew. But everyone, fur trader or explorer, who 
saw a new bit of the country, claimed It in the name of 
his own nation. 

When Meares sent his longboat Into the Straits that 
July, therefore, he wrote to the officer: "You will take 
possession of this strait and the lands adjoining In the 
name of the King and Crown of Great Britain." He 
wrote this. Instead of saying It, because he wanted It on 
record. 

[22] 




From an old print 

Captain Meares in San Juan de Fuca Straits 




From an old print 

Launching of the " Northwest America 



BATTLE IN STRAITS OF SAN JUAN DE FUCA 

The longboat party sailed and partly rowed the short 
distance back to the Straits. There was Tatoosh, the 
rocky island, again, swarming with Indians and crowded 
with the rough huts of the redskins. And the shores all 
around the entrance of the straits were dotted with these 
same small, rough, board houses. 

Paying no attention to the Indians, the men rowed into 
the inlet, just how far we do not know, but up along the 
northern shore. The Indians at first paid little attention 
to them, but as they sailed farther in things became more 
dangerous. One morning, as they were near the shore, 
the Indians began to show fight. Two canoes, with per- 
haps fifty warriors in all, came directly up to the long- 
boat. They Intended to capture it, and make the sailors 
slaves. Other canoes stood at a little distance, to help 
if they could. The shore was thronged with men, women, 
and children, most of them armed with slings and stones. 

So began the battle. The canoe warriors, armed with 
bone-tipped arrows and shell-tipped spears, began the 
attack. They tried to jump into the longboat and throw 
the sailors overboard; but they were forced back. Then 
the canoes drew back, while from the shore and the 
canoes flew showers of arrows into the boat and among 
the men. One Indian lifted a long spear to hurl it at 
the boatswain, not far from him. As he was about to 
throw It, the officer In command drew his pistol and shot 
the Indian. Then the canoes all drew off a little, while 
another shower of arrows came among the sailors. 

At last, after sharp fighting, the longboat gradually 

[23] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

got out of reach of the slings and arrows from the shore, 
and made its way down to the entrance of the straits 
again, past Tatoosh Island, out into the ocean, and north- 
ward to the waiting ship. 

Captain Meares was waiting anxiously for the boat. 
When it came into the harbor where he was he counted 
the crew. All were there. But as the boat came nearer, 
he saw some were badly wounded, and the boat damaged 
by arrows and stones. Yet none of the men were killed. 

One thing in particular had saved the sailors. Over 
the back of the longboat they had dropped the awning 
which, if drawn up, partly covered the boat. Sailors 
spend whole weeks in such boats, eating and sleeping 
there, hot, sunny days and cold, rainy nights; so they 
needed such an awning. Into this loose canvas many 
arrows had stuck. The awning also broke the force of 
the stones thrown by the people on shore with their slings. 
Another thing which had helped was that, by the motion 
of the waves, both the canoes of the Indians and the 
longboat of the sailors were in constant motion, so that 
their aim was poor. 

So ended this battle of the Straits. 

In later years, however, after American settlers had 
come into the Oregon country, and many had built houses 
in the little villages around Puget Sound, a small armed 
American ship was surrounded by the canoes of these 
Indians and captured. The Indians not only captured the 
ship, but destroyed it. 



[24] 



CHAPTER V 

WHEN CAPTAIN GRAY CROSSED THE TERRIBLE BAR 

OUT from Boston Harbor, in September, 1790, went 
a little sailing ship, laden with many things, bound 
for the Northwest Coast of America. On board was a 
cargo of coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar, flour, salt beef, salt 
pork, butter, cheese, molasses, and twenty-seven thousand 
pounds of hard, dry ship's bread. Besides food. Captain 
Gray had also on board sea coal, bars of Iron and bars of 
lead, gunpowder, shot, guns, Indian trading goods, tar 
and pitch, and two thousand bricks. There were thirty 
men in the crew, and the vessel was armed with ten large 
ships' guns. These were for defense against pirates and 
Indians; 

This was the second voyage of Captain Robert Gray 
to Nootka Sound. The first time, two years before this, 
was when he stood with his crew and watched, in amaze- 
ment, the launching of Captain Meares's coasting vessel, 
the Northwest America. 

Gray and Kendrick, who were sent out by the same 
firm of shipowners and fur traders, had exchanged vessels 
that fall. Kendrick now had the smaller ship, the Lady 
JVashington, while Gray had the larger, the Columbia. 
Captain Gray, in the Columbia, had taken the furs of that 

[25] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

first voyage over to China, sold them there, bought tea, 
and had taken that around the Horn to Boston. Now he 
was off for his second voyage, with iron and lead and 
bricks in his hold. 

The lead was for bullets. The iron was for trading, 
after the blacksmith had made it into small articles such 
as fishhooks, armlets and bracelets, chisels, and many 
other things. But can you imagine why he took bricks? 
Fancy carrying two thousand bricks from Boston, down 
the eastern side of both North and South America, then 
around the dangerous Horn, and all the way up the west- 
ern side of the two Americas again! Two thousand bricks 
are just enough to build a chimney. Captain Gray intended 
to build a small fort, similar to Captain Meares's, 
because he was intending to remain on the coast that 
next winter. He did build a log cabin at Clayoquot 
Sound, and spent the winter there. 

Now, when Captain Gray, just out from Boston on his 
second voyage, reached Oregon, he began trading up and 
down the coast, running into the little inlets and harbors 
and bays wherever he saw an Indian village. Like all 
other captains, he was always on the lookout for a friendly 
sail in those lonely waters. One morning, just at dawn, 
in the spring of 1792, he was hailed by a British exploring 
vessel. It was under the command of Captain George 
Vancouver, who had with him a smaller ship as a tender. 
Vancouver invited Gray to visit him, so the Yankee went 
aboard the British vessel for a friendly chat. They 
sailed into the Straits, in a thick misting rain, and while 

[26] 



WHEN CAPTAIN GRAY CROSSED THE BAR 

the captains and officers talked of possible rivers and 
bays and islands, the crews fished in vain from the wet, 
slippery decks for a mess of fish, Vancouver wanted to 
know whether Nootka Sound was on an island. He 
talked also about a mysterious River of the West which 
was supposed to be near there. Gray said that a few 
days before, near 46°, he had stopped at a large "bay" 
which he thought must be the mouth of a large river. 
The ocean water near by was discolored with mud, and 
that was a proof. 

But Vancouver had also passed that "bay" a few 
days before. He said the muddy water might come from 
some small river near by, but there was no large river 
there. 

Now this "bay" — or was it a river? — near 46° was 
the very one which had puzzled so many other people. 
The Spanish explorer had said it was a river, and named 
it the Rio San Roque. Captain Cook saw nothing at all. 
Captain Meares thought it was a river, tried to sail into 
it, was afraid of the breakers, and sailed away, saying it 
was a bay of the ocean. Captain Gray thought it must be 
the mouth of a large river. Captain Vancouver was sure 
it was only a salt-water bay. 

Now Gray was a Yankee, and rather an independent 
man. If that really was a river, he wanted to know it; 
and there must be many furs in it. So when his ship 
sailed out of the Straits of San Juan de Fuca, after his 
visit with Vancouver was over, he went straight south to 
that bay. 

[27] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Back Gray went. He had waited there before, trying 
to get in; now he waited again. Indeed he waited for 
several days, because the wind was blowing and the 
waves were high. 

Gray's plan was daring. Seven miles long were those 
sand bars, outside the river mouth, and three miles 
wide, with only a narrow, winding channel between them, 
as he found afterwards. All the mouth of the river 
was choked with these sand bars, far outside of Cape 
Disappointment. The rushing water from the river met 
the waves thrown upon the bar by wind and tide, and the 
breakers were terrific. Roaring and thundering, day after 
day, the white waves crashed and beat over the bars. In 
the quiet of the forested hills, the uproar of the waters 
could be heard for miles. It was certain death to anyone 
caught in those white, foaming breakers. 

Then one day. May ii, 1792, the wind quieted down, 
the waves were a little calmer, and though the breakers 
still dashed and thundered. Gray thought he could see a 
channel. In went the little sailing ship, depending only 
upon the breeze and the skill of the captain — in through 
that narrow, winding, unknown channel into the unknown 
bay. Carefully Gray steered while his men sounded the 
depth of water, until at last they were through the 
breakers and inside. Then the sailors found at once, as 
they dipped up the water, that it was sweet, fresh, river 
water and not salt water. Had it been merely a bay, the 
water would have been salt. 

Captain Robert Gray had discovered the River of the 

[28] 



WHEN CAPTAIN GRAY CROSSED THE BAR 

West which Indians many years before had said flowed 
into the Bitter Waters. 

Indians in their canoes now came out over the broad, 
gleaming river, dancing blue in the sunshine, as Captain 
Gray sailed up the river for fifteen miles or so. At last 
he anchored, and then they had a busy time. The Indians 
were trading furs and fish and roots; the armorer was 
hammering at his forge, working up those iron bars; 
carpenters were making repairs; painters were painting 
and caulking the ship; some of the sailors were washing 
down the ship, and others were refilling the water casks 
with fresh water. 

On a Tuesday, four days after they entered, Captain 
Gray and his mate "went on shore to take a short view 
of the country," so the old log book says. 

They did more. They took possession of the country 
in the name of the United States of America. That 
really did not amount to much because Gray was only a 
private fur trader, and no oflUcial report was ever made 
by him to the government, so far as we know. Gray 
hoisted on the Columbia River the American flag, and 
planted there on the shore some New England pine-tree 
shillings under a tree, and named the river after his plucky 
little ship. They named the two capes also : one was to be 
Cape Hancock and the other Cape Adams, after two 
famous New England men. But the old name. Cape Dis- 
appointment, was the one which, after all, stuck to the 
northern headland. 

Pine-tree shillings were just the thing to plant in the 

[29] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Oregon country. There were a few pines along the 
Columbia River, though not many; but all the hills which 
rolled back from this broad, glorious stream were black 
with dense forests of other cone-bearing trees — spruce 
and fir and hemlock. 

Another interesting thing is that this river on the 
western coast was discovered just three hundred years 
after Columbus discovered America (1492 and 1792); 
and that the United States was only nine years old when 
the American flag was hoisted in the river and on the shore. 

Captain Gray stayed in the river some ten days, trading 
with the swarms of Indians who came out to his ship, and 
getting a fresh start. The old log book told just which 
days were bright and sunny and which were cloudy or 
rainy. But the old log does not tell us half as much as 
we want to know about the wonderful crossing of that 
terrible bar, and of the stay in the river. Gray's daring 
in facing those breakers and entering the river gave the 
United States the very first right she had to claim any 
part of the Oregon country; before that, Spain and Great 
Britain were the only ones having any real right to it. 

The crossing of that fearsome bar was a daring thing 
to do, with only a sailing vessel, tossed this way and that 
by the wind or the currents, to face those terrific breakers 
which roared and dashed and thundered at the entrance 
of the Columbia. 

In 1805 the Lewis and Clark expedition came over- 
land from St. Louis, and they discovered and explored 
part of the river from the other direction. 

[30] 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK 

THIRTEEN years after Captain Gray entered the 
Columbia River, a party of thirty-two men and one 
woman, nearly all Americans, were coming up the Mis- 
souri River on an exploring expedition. Captain Meri- 
wether Lewis and Captain William Clark were the two 
leaders, and nearly all their men were American soldiers. 
All were white except three. One of these was a slender 
little Indian woman of eighteen or nineteen, with her tiny 
papoose strapped on her back. A second was her hus- 
band, the guide, who was half Indian and half French. 
The third was a black, black Negro. 

Up the Missouri River, in 1805, came this party in the 
bright spring sunshine. The wide plains on each side 
were green with grass and black with buffaloes. Wild 
flowers were blooming, birds singing, the sky was blue 
overhead, and the green trees bordering the river waved 
their long branches in the fresh prairie breeze. Some- 
times, it is true, the weather was stormy and rainy, yet 
much of the time it was beautiful. 

One thing these men were to do was to cross, and 
explore as they crossed, the new Louisiana Purchase, a 
vast stretch of country westward from the Mississippi 

[31] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

River to the Rocky Mountains. Its northern border was 
then undecided. Another thing, was to cross the moun- 
tains and valleys and go through the Oregon country to 
the Pacific Ocean. 

Oregon, in those days, was that unknown stretch of 
mountains and valleys beyond the Rocky Mountains and 
north of California. It extended as far north as " Russian 
America," which is now Alaska; so It was a thousand 
miles wide, east and west, along its southern border. It 
was not so wide at the north because the Rocky Mountains 
trend northwestward, and the Oregon boundary followed 
the mountains. Along the seacoast it was about eight 
hundred miles long. 

No one had explored Oregon at all, except a few British 
fur traders in the north. In the southern part, Captain 
Gray had discovered the mouth of the Columbia River. 
Up and down the coast British and American fur-trading 
ships, like Captain Meares's and Gray's and Kendrick's, 
had sailed, and they had found that Nootka Sound was on 
an island — but that was about all that anybody knew 
about it at that time. 

So Lewis and Clark were to explore the southern part of 
Old Oregon, along the Columbia River. Day after day, 
that pleasant spring of 1805, they followed the windings of 
the muddy Missouri. Sometimes at night they camped 
upon an island in mid stream, feeling safer there from the 
Indians; sometimes they camped on shore. There were 
many dangers, from drowning, from Indians, and from 
other causes. But they had, on the Missouri River, 

[32] 



THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK 

abundance of food. Herds of deer, as well as black 
throngs of buffaloes, grazed on the broad, grassy plains 
around them. Wild geese and ducks floated on the river, 
or whirred over it when frightened. 

As the river narrowed (in what is now Montana), they 
watched for a great waterfall, because the Indians told 
them this fall was on the true Missouri, and they were 
afraid of getting into some branch of the river. 

Walking along the bank one morning, Captain Clark 
heard a distant roar like thunder; then he saw a cloud of 
mist blow over the plains. Hurrying happily to it, he 
found that it was indeed the roar of falling waters and 
misty spray driven by a June breeze. Very much excited, 
he sat down on a rock near by and waited for the 
boats, with his men and Captain Lewis, to come up. He 
named the place the Great Falls of the Missouri, and 
the city which stands near there today is named Great 
Falls. 

But now the troubles of the explorers began. The June 
sunshine was glorious, with fresh breezes from the moun- 
tains, the grass was green and the wild flowers beautiful. 
Buffaloes were plentiful around them, also, so that there 
was no lack of food. Yet their troubles for the next 
twenty miles were endless. 

First, on account of the falls which thundered down 
the river In cascades and In falls for nearly eighteen 
miles, they had to go overland. Boats, Indian trading 
goods, their written reports, their surveying Instruments — 
everything had to be carried for twenty miles to smooth 

[33] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

water. They needed a rough wagon; but a wagon must 
have wheels. After whole days of search, they found the 
only tree within twenty miles of them that was large 
enough. They were in a treeless country. They cut down 
that tree, sawed off round pieces, bored a hole in the center 
of these slabs, and behold! there were the wheels — but 
such clumsy wheels ! Then crosspieces held the whole 
together, and the canoes were loaded on. The men har- 
nessed themselves to drag it all. Can you imagine the 
hardships? Up hills they went and down ravines and 
across gullies. The soft wood of the cross-pieces and the 
whiffletree broke constantly. Worse than that, the ground 
was covered with prickly pear cactus, and the hooked 
thorns cut through their moccasins. Their shoes had long 
since been worn out. 

Besides all this, the ground was the kind known as 
"gumbo." It was soft and sticky during rains. Buffaloes 
had tramped over it while It was wet and soft, and had 
cut up the earth with their sharp hoofs into sharp, fine 
points. In the sunshine this ground dried as hard as a 
rock, and sharp points cut like pins and needles. Nor was 
that all. They had a terrific hailstorm in traveling that 
short distance. The hailstones were large enough to knock 
some of the men down; everyone was bruised by them. 

Yet actually their worst enemy was the grizzly bear. 
Grizzlies are always savage, but these bears were so used 
to attacking large animals, such as elk and buffalo, that 
they were not in the least afraid of men. And they were 
very strong. Even after they had been shot again and 

[34] 



THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK 

again — when wounded with six or eight bullets — they 
would run after the hunters. With blazing eyes, open 
mouth, and roaring loudly, they would rush after them 
with great speed and with outspread claws. The talons 
on some of these bears were four and one-half Inches 
long. Again and again the hunters of the expedition 
escaped only with their lives — jumping down high bluffs, 
with the bear tumbling heavily after them. 

Those twenty miles of cacti, gumbo soil, hailstorms, 
grizzly bears, blazing hot sunshine, steep hills and ravines, 
and their heavy, clumsy, home-made wagon with its round 
wooden wheels, fairly wore the men out. Two weeks they 
spent in this way. 

But after that trying two weeks, the explorers put their 
canoes into the water again and paddled up the river. 
At last the water became so shallow, and there were so 
many rapids, they hid the canoes and started off on foot. 
They also cached all the Indian goods, and the powder and 
lead which they could not take with them. A cache, as the 
word was used in those old days, was a hiding place dug 
carefully in the earth. The hole was lined with small 
branches of trees and underbrush, to keep the goods from 
the dampness, sometimes lined also with buffalo robes. 
Then the goods were put in, covered with other robes, 
other branches, and earth thrown over the top. Every- 
thing was done as carefully as possible, so as not to show 
that a cache had been made. 

Day after day they followed the little stream, for the 
Missouri River was only a creek now. One morning 

[35] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Sacajawea, "the Bird Woman," pointed out the place 
where she had been taken prisoner by the Blackfeet about 
six years before. Now, with the Americans, and with her 
tiny baby on her back, she was returning to her girlhood 
home. 

The explorers were going directly toward the Three 
Forks of the Missouri — a point where three streams, 
meeting, formed the upper waters of the Missouri. They 
were on dangerous ground. Because this was a country 
famous for its hunting, it was also a famous battle ground. 
From the north came the terrible Blackfeet; from the 
south the Shoshones, or Snakes, the tribe of Sacajawea; 
from the east the Crows, famous for their expert thievery 
and their long hair; from the west the Flatheads, always 
friendly to the white men, and the Nez Perces. The Nez 
Perces came over the mountains of the Bitter Root, and 
through the valleys of the Rocky Mountains, on hunting 
expeditions. 

Lewis and Clark now wanted to meet friendly Indians. 
They needed to know how to cross the "Stony Mountains" 
which loomed up before them. They needed also to buy 
horses. They did everything to show friendliness, in case 
Indians should be watching them, unknown. The fact that 
they had a woman and her baby with them showed that 
they were not a war party; so the Bird Woman was near 
the leaders of the party. 

At last Captain Lewis, trudging along with two men, 
saw on a hilltop an Indian warrior, some women, and a 
dog. Taking his blanket from his back, he threw it over 

[36] 



JHE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK 

his head and brought it unfolded to the ground. The 
action meant spreading a seat for a guest on the ground. 
It was a sign of friendship. The Indian advanced, and 
so did Lewis, until they were within three hundred feet of 
each other; then the redskin became frightened, turned 
his horse, and fled. 

Still Captain Lewis followed the trail that day and the 
next. Captain Clark had taken another trail and Sacajawea 
was with him. Lewis met another Indian, and in about 
the same way. He also fled. As Lewis and his two men 
plodded on they suddenly encountered three Indian women, 
who had been left behind by the fleeing warrior. One of 
these, a young girl, ran away; the other two bent their 
heads, expecting to be killed. Lewis rolled up his sleeves 
to show his white skin; he kept repeating also the Sho- 
shone word for "white man." He gave some beads to the 
women, and made them call back the young woman who 
had run away. He painted the faces of all three with 
red paint — and then down on them, with hot haste, came 
an Indian war party of sixty warriors! 

The warriors were ready to fight. But when the women 
laughed and showed their presents and their newly- 
painted faces, they at once became friendly. Captain 
Lewis made some presents to the chiefs and leading men, 
and went on with them to their camp. 

A few days later, Lewis and his men, joined by these 
Indians, returned to meet Captain Clark and the rest of 
the American party. The leading chief wished to talk with 
Lewis and Clark, but they had to have an interpreter. 

[37] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

They sent for Sacajawea. When she came, she suddenly 
recognized that chief as her own brother. 

After this the Indians were very friendly indeed. They 
sold horses, gave the explorers food which they really 
needed themselves, and showed them how to cross the 
mountains and which was the best trail. Soon, therefore, 
after meeting with these friendly Shoshones the explorers 
started over the trail to the westward. We call these 
mountains now the Rocky Mountains; but Lewis and 
Clark, called them, as did the traders and trappers and 
hunters for years afterwards, the Stony Mountains, the 
Rock Mountains, the Snowy Mountains, and also the 
Shining Mountains, because when the sun shone on the 
snowy ridges they gleamed brightly. 

All along the route the Indians had been friendly. This 
was because this party had been friendly to them, had 
given them presents, been kind to them, and had taken 
advantage of them in no way. So also the Flathead 
Indians, who lived in the Flathead Valley and on the slopes 
of the Bitter Root Mountains and in the Bitter Root 
Valley, were friendly. 

The Flatheads sold the Americans food, showed them 
the best trail over the Bitter Root Mountains, and were 
kind to them. 

The Bitter Root Mountains are so called because of the 
bitter little root with pink flowers which grew all over those 
mountains. The explorers called them "savage" moun- 
tains, because they had such a fearful time crossing them, 
on the trail or off it. The mountain sides were very steep; 

[38] 



THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK 

they were densely forested, and even the trail was con- 
stantly blocked by fallen trees, lying one upon another. 
The streams ran in deep gorges, thundering and foaming 
far beneath them; and there were no bridges. The 
mountain torrents, racing down the mountain sides in 
spring and summer, were lower now, and some of them 
dried up. They could not always find fresh water. In 
climbing up and down the steep mountain sides, horses 
fell down with their loads — sometimes lost their footing 
and toppled over, down the mountain side or into a gorge. 
Winding among the rocky knobs, on the higher levels, 
they lost their trail. It was now September, and the 
snow in the mountains was a foot and a half deep. There 
was no game, and the dried buffalo meat brought with 
them was almost gone. 

Weary and worn and nearly starved, with some horses 
left behind them, dying with starvation and too weak to 
travel farther, the explorers at last reached the other side 
of the mountains and the lower levels. Here they saw 
three Indian boys at play, for it was summer in that 
country, though winter on the heights above. They offered 
ribbons to the boys if they would go to the village and 
tell their tribe that white men were starving and needed 
their help. 

In this way the Americans met the friendly Nez Perces. 
In this way they secured help and food and fresh horses to 
carry their baggage. In payment for the horses they gave 
the Indians scarlet leggins, handkerchiefs, tobacco, knives, 
and other things. They gave a chief a laced red coat. 

[39] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

In the evenings, among these friendly red people, they 
took out their fiddles and played and danced, while the 
Indians laughed, just as all the Indians on the plains and 
on the Missouri River had laughed when the white men 
fiddled to them. 

Then they journeyed on. 

They traveled down the Clearwater to the Snake River, 
and then on to the Columbia. When they understood that 
they at last had reached that River of the West which 
flowed Into the Bitter Waters, they began to build canoes. 
Travel by water Is much quicker and easier than by land 
In a new country. When ready to go down by boat, they 
gave their horses to the care of a friendly chief and 
paddled away. 

The Columbia itself was smooth enough, yet the voyage 
had Its hardships. At Celilo Falls, again at The Dalles, 
and again at the Cascade Rapids, they had to carry their 
boats and all their baggage; and the tribes here were not 
so friendly as the Shoshones and Flatheads and Nez 
Perces had been. They were more degraded, living idle 
lives, depending on fish, and on the trading which passed 
through their hands. The Indians above traded buffalo 
meat, dried or jerked, and pemmican with the Indians of 
the lower river, for dried fish. Thus the horse Indians 
traded with the canoe Indians, and the two classes were 
very different. There is much more about them In other 
chapters. But these Indians at the portages were robber 
Indians, stealing from every boatload, and demanding toll 
from every person who passed up or down the Columbia. 

[40] 




The Lewis and Clark line of exploration, west of the Rocky 
mountains. This was the most northerly point of exploration made 
by Americans. All the country shown, further north, had been dis- 
covered and explored by the British. 



[41] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

From the time they set their canoes afloat upon the 
Columbia the explorers visited every Indian village they 
saw, crossing the river constantly, making presents at each 
place, and telling the Indians they were friends. So they 
traveled on through October. 

From the Cascades down to the Willamette there was 
only the broad, smooth river, dotted here and there on its 
banks with villages, and the river was glorious in the 
sunlight, the sun shining on the high hills, forest-cov- 
ered, on each side. Snowy peaks gleamed here and 
there. 

But on the lower river the winter rains had begun, for 
it was November. On they went, rain or shine, until one 
day they saw the breakers dashing furiously over the 
bar at the mouth of the Columbia, and heard the 
thunder of the crashing white waters. They had reached 
the end of their journey. Beyond lay the Pacific 
Ocean. 

But It was November! It rained and rained and rained. 
All day and all night the cold rain came down, while high 
winds blew high waves upon the mighty river, and penned 
the men up for three or four days at a time upon some 
narrow point of land. On Point Ellice they had to encamp 
on a narrow shelf. Above them rose sheer rocks which 
they could not climb. But the rain-loosened rocks could 
and did fall down upon them. They could not escape by 
following the bank of the river, for rocks rose sheer out 
of the water on either side of them. The waves were too 
high to venture Into the river with their small canoes. 

[42] 



THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK 

Their Indian goods and baggage they had placed above 
the tide, but the rains soaked them through and ruined 
part of them. 

Their canoes were fastened almost at their feet, but the 
high waves and the tides carried great driftwood logs 
among the boats, so that the men had constantly to push 
away the logs that the canoes might not be crushed. Such 
an accident would have been fatal. And there Lewis and 
Clark and their men stayed for days, without a tent or 
even an umbrella, in that cold, cheerless rain. Dressed 
only in leather, the chilling winds and rain almost froze" 
them. 

At last, one day, there came a break in the storm, and 
in quieter waters they packed their baggage into their 
canoes and paddled away. Crossing to the south side of 
the river, they at last decided to build their winter fort on 
what is now Lewis and Clark River, a stream flowing into 
the Columbia. There they built seven log cabins, after- 
wards protected by a high, spiked log wall — a palisade — 
to keep out Indian thieves or Indian enemies. 

Though many elk were in the forests around them, the 
explorers were half starved that winter. The hunters 
killed game, but before they could get it through the tan- 
gled forest to the fort it would spoil. The winters there 
are not cold; only the chill of the rain and winds is hard 
for people living in the open air as these men did. They 
could not explore in the constant rain and fog, so they 
had to wait for the spring to come. Exploring, of course, 
was their only reason for being in the Oregon country at 

[43] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

all. They were ordered to find out everything they could 
about it. 

By this time their supply of salt had given out. Down 
on the ocean, near what is now the village of Seaside, they 
made salt by boiling down salt sea water. 

In the spring they had to return to the United States. 
Their trading goods were almost gone, and they were not 
certain whether they had enough to buy the friendship of 
the tribes as they returned. But there was no time for 
exploring the Oregon country, or going up and down the 
coast even on land. 

It was a long homeward trail, up the Columbia River 
in their canoes, back to the friendly chief who had taken 
good care of their horses, paying everywhere for fish and 
game and roots with their beads and paint and knives and 
ribbons and blankets, and here and there a scarlet laced 
coat. On they went, over those savage Bitter Root Moun- 
tains again, then over the Rockies, down the Missouri 
River, through the great plains. The homeward trail was 
very long indeed. But all the way back the Indians were 
friendly and kindly and helpful, because the explorers had 
been so to them on their way out. Indians have a keen 
sense of justice, and the white men are to blame for many 
of our Indian troubles. 

Because of that long journey, the United States was 
able to claim, by reason of exploration, the country 
through which the explorers had traveled. Gray had dis- 
covered the mouth of the Columbia River thirteen years 
before. Now Lewis and Clark had discovered and jour- 

[44] 



THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK 

neyed down part of the upper river, but not all of it; and 
therefore part of the Columbia is in British Columbia, 
because the British discovered and explored the sources 
of It. 

Of all the people on that long voyage, which one do you 
think was the most interesting? 

To the Indians, York the Negro was. He was very 
strong, and he was so very black. They used to rub their 
hands over his face and his arms to see If he was painted 
black. His flat nose and his woolly, kinky hair were a 
great puzzle to them. In after years these Indians told 
their children about this very black man who had come 
with white men into the land of the red men. 

To many people, Sacajawea, the Bird Woman, Is most 
Interesting. She was a brave, patient little woman, start- 
ing off on that long journey with her precious baby on her 
back, but her keen eyes ever alert to help the kindly white 
men. She was a better guide than her husband, who was 
really the guide of the party. She could interpret where 
others could not. Indians who feared the white men, with 
their strange beards and clothing, and their guns shooting 
lightning and making thunder, lost their fear when they 
saw this slender little woman among them. She made 
dozens of pairs of moccasins for the explorers. When 
they were hungry and starving, she starved too. She 
walked just as far, and over as many prickly pears and 
as many rocks, as they did. At one time, on the Missouri 
River, when her clumsy husband upset the canoe In which 
the papers and reports were, together with the Instru- 

[45] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

ments for measuring the mountains, she came to the rescue. 
She held her baby firmly in one hand and reached out with 
the other and steadied the canoe, and picked the papers 
off the water as they floated by. Without these papers, 
and the steadying of the canoe which saved the measuring 
instruments, the explorers could not have gone farther — 
they would have had to return. So the brave little Bird 
Woman saved the expedition. 

Fur traders followed the explorers the very year after. 
Missionaries and settlers followed the fur traders and 
trappers. And so, within forty years, there were many 
Americans living in the Oregon country, along the Colum- 
bia River, and down the Willamette River. That meant 
the settlement of the whole country and the great cities 
which are now planted where the Indians pitched their 
tepees. 



[46] 



CHAPTER VII 

HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA 

OUTSIDE the terrible bar of the Columbia tossed 
a little sailing ship, one gray March day in 1811. 
This was just five years after Lewis and Clark had left 
the mouth of the Columbia and had gone back across the 
plains and the mountains to St. Louis. This ship was the 
Tonqiiin. On board were the partners and clerks of the 
fur company. She was waiting for a fair wind to carry 
her through the channel amidst the breakers on the bar. 
The men on that ship looked in dismay at the scene around 
them. 

Directly In front of them, for miles, dashed and thun- 
dered and pounded the white waves on the bar, because 
the wind was strong. Once In among those breakers, 
the little sailing vessel would be carried this way and 
that, perhaps pounding upon a bar with great white 
combers crashing over her — and go down, as many a 
ship has done since. 

And this was the very place, of course, where Captain 
Robert Gray, nearly twenty years before, had sailed over 
that famous bar. Beyond the bar was a great open 
"bay," where the water was less rough. 

At last the ship lowered a small boat with four men 

[47] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

in It, and sent it to find the ciiannel. Both crew and 
passengers on the Tonquin watched it anxiously. The 
small boat went in toward the channel, was caught in the 
waves, struggled awhile, and then went down. No one 
ever again saw that boat or any man that was in it. 

The next day another boat was lowered, with four men, 
because that channel had to be found. That, too, was 
caught by the breakers, and went down. Only one of the 
men was saved. He was washed ashore and found later, 
nearly dead. 

What were they to do? The passengers on the Tonquin 
were fur traders, and they had come to build a fur-trading 
post at the mouth of the Columbia. They had to get into 
that river. 

At last, at a favorable turn of the tide, when the wind 
had died down a little and the breeze came from the 
right direction, Captain Jonathan Thorn tried to sail in, 
through what seemed to be the channel. And though it 
was night, yet somehow — they never knew just how — the 
ship slipped through that narrow, winding channel among 
the sand bars, and drifted into Baker's Bay. 

The next morning, the very first thing they did was to 
go ashore and build a pigpen 1 The Tonquin was crowded, 
not only with people, including Kanakas whom they had 
engaged at the Sandwich Islands, but also with pigs and 
cows which they had bought there. There was little room 
for anybody. The animals had to be landed, and they 
were, in a very short time, so that the crowded ship was 
more comfortable. 

[48] 



HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA 

The next step was to find a site for the fort. All about 
them, on both sides of the river, the dense black forests 
came down to the water's edge. The banks of the river 
were quite steep. For a fort they needed to have, close 
at hand, logs of the right size for cabins. They needed 
the river for their ships, spring water or else river water 
near by for drinking as well as for washing and cooking. 
They needed space for a garden, and for their live stock, 
and they needed also a fairly level space on which to 
erect their cabins, which they would have to fence in. 

None of the places near the ship seemed to be suitable. 
The partners went up the river and down, and over to the 
south side, while Captain Thorn scolded about " smoking 
and picnic parties." The stern captain insisted they must 
find a place quickly or else he would land the trading goods 
and everything else, and sail away to trade for furs along 
the coast north of them. So they hurried to find a good 
spot near by. 

Two of the partners went up the river from Baker's 
Bay, where the ship was anchored, promising to be back 
on a certain day. They met an old, one-eyed chief named 
Comcomly, a funny old fellow, who was very friendly to 
them. After talking to him, by signs, and spending sev- 
eral days searching along the shore for a good site, they 
started back to the ship. The wind had risen and the 
water was rough. Comcomly warned them not to go. But 
the partners had promised, and they were rather afraid 
of Captain Thorn, so back they started. The waves were 
high; the river was covered with whitecaps. They had 

[49] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

gone only a mile when up dashed a big wave — and down 
went the boat! But Comcomly's Indian tribesmen had 
been trailing them down the river and were not far away. 
Out stretched the long red arms of the Chinooks, In spite 
of the tossing, high waves, and caught the white men 
struggling in the water. Then they pulled them into their 
canoe. The Indians of the Columbia were expert oars- 
men. But the partners had to go back to the old chief's 
camp and stay there until the storm was over, and that was 
two or three days. 

Shortly after their return to the ship it was decided to 
build their little fort on the south side of the river, upon 
a point they named Point George, just where the city of 
Astoria is today. The new post itself, however, they called 
Fort Astoria. Mr. John Jacob Astor, of New York 
City, was the head of the fur company, which was called 
the Pacific Fur Company. But usually his men were called 
"Astorlans." 

But the point selected was not a particularly good one, 
after all their trouble. The building of the fort was hard 
and dangerous work. Point George was on a steep hill- 
side, covered with enormous trees. Many were two hun- 
dred feet high and more. Some were six and eight feet 
in diameter. Every man had to begin tree-chopping, 
whether he knew anything about it or not — and few did 
know how. The traders, the clerks, the canoemen, the 
Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands — all went to work 
to clear the spot of these tremendous trees. 

Alexander Ross — and you will find him in other chap- 

[50] 



HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA 

ters of this book — tells the story of the building of Fort 
Astoria. 

First they picked out a tree they could get at, for the 
trees were all close together and the underbrush was high. 
Then they built a scaffold around it, so that they could 
stand above the rocks among the roots. Four men would 
begin to chop such a tree, none knowing how. Some had 
short-handled axes, and others long-handled ones. This 
made the chopping harder. Their guns they rested against 
a near-by tree while they chopped. But the woods around 
them were full of Indians, and every time they heard a 
rustling in the jungle of underbrush they dropped their 
axes and picked up their guns. That made slow work. 

At last, after much toil, when the big tree was cut 
through so that it should fall, it would begin to topple 
over. But behold! it would catch In the top of another 
immense tree and hang there, a danger to everyone. There 
was not room enough for it to fall. Another would be 
cut, and begin to fall in just the same way, catching in 
another tree. And so three or four of these great giant 
trees would hang together, in most dangerous fashion. 
At last they would cut another, and then at last, when 
their weight carried them down, two or three or four 
trees would fall, all together, with a crash which echoed 
across the river and back again, and through the dense 
forests around them. Even then the logs were so big 
nothing could be done with them. They had to be blown 
to pieces with gunpowder, and the chunks rolled into the 
river. Several men were hurt by gunpowder accidents. 

[51] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Yet all this time these men, in turn, had to stand guard 
at night for fear of Indians. With all their toil and work 
and sleeplessness and the wet weather, they had no tents 
in which to sleep, and very poor food. They had only 
boiled fish and the roots which the Indians brought to 
sell to them. Worse than all, it was early in the spring 
and the weather was wet and cold. " Every other day 
was a day of rain," Ross said. Even when it did not rain, 
the lowering gray skies, the dreariness, made the men 
unhappy, and the damp fogs chilled them through. 

It was indeed a lonely spot, with the wide river in front, 
bordered on both sides with dark forests, full of Indians. 
To the westward lay that terrible bar, and day and night 
they heard the fearful crashing of the breakers. To the 
eastward, somewhere, even though two thousand miles 
away across mountains and deserts, lay the United States. 
So some of the men deserted, trying to get home overland. 
But the Indians farther up the river captured them as 
they trudged toward the Cascades, and made them slaves. 
Then the officer in charge, Mr. Duncan McDougall, had to 
buy them back with many gifts to the Indians. 

At last, with all their work, with the lack of sleep and 
of good food, in spite of the sullenness of McDougall and 
the scoldings of Captain Thorn, who lived on his ship and 
traded with the Indians — at last enough ground was 
cleared for their fort. A building was put up for a trad- 
ing shop and as a warehouse for the supplies of all kinds. 
Then, on June i. Captain Thorn cleared his decks and 
made ready for sailing on that coasting voyage for which 

[52] 



HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA 

he was so eager — and from which he never came back. 
The Indians attacked the ship at Clayoquot harbor and 
massacred the crew and the captain as well. 

On June 5, the traders at Fort Astoria watched the 
Tonqiiin as she passed over the bar, all sails swelling, 
majestic and beautiful. But with her went their last chance 
of reaching the world outside. 

But there was no time to be lonely. There was not a 
stockade yet — that is, a high, spiked fence of logs. This 
was put all around the buildings and a small bit of ground 
to protect them from Indian attack. This stockade was 
about fifteen feet high. It was made so high and spiked 
so that Indians could not climb over it. At diagonal cor- 
ners were two blockhouses of good-sized logs, which were 
two stories high. These blockhouses were built Into the 
corners of the stockade so that they looked Into the fort 
and from them could be seen both sides of the stockade 
near by. Men looking out from loopholes In the block- 
houses could see and shoot at any Indian, on either of the 
sides guarded by them, who might be trying to climb In 
the fort, or set fire to it, or break through It. 

The logs which formed the " picket fence," as one writer 
called it, were also the back logs of some of the cabins 
which were erected Inside the fort yard. These smaller 
houses were dwelling houses for the men and partners, 
and blacksmith shop, and later on a hospital was built. 

For the Inner walls of these buildings they needed 
smaller logs than the trunks of the great trees about the 
fort, so the men had to go back Into the forest for these 

[53] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

smaller trees. But there were no horses or mules or oxen. 
So the workmen had to harness themselves as animals, and 
six or eight of them, pulling together, would drag a log 
out of the forest Into the stockade. It was exceedingly 
hard work. Indeed, they worked so hard and so carefully 
that the next year when the second ship, the Beaver, came 
in, with more supplies and more men, they had a fairly 
good fort. 

Inside the stockade, when the Beaver arrived, there were 
more dwellings for the men and a carpenter's shop, be- 
sides other storehouses. By this time the stockade was 
well guarded, as cannon had been put into the blockhouses, 
and muskets were kept in the second story to be used, if 
necessary, through the loopholes. 

Outside the stockade was a little garden, though it did 
not succeed well. Potatoes flourished and a few turnips, 
but the mice ate all the radishes, and the turnips went to 
seed too quickly. The soil was too cold and the weather 
too chilly for gardening at that point. 

But long before the Beaver came in, in that second year, 
the traders began to be worried because the Tonquin did 
not return. Late in the summer of 1811 rumors floated 
about among the Indians that she had been destroyed. 
Later, McDougall and other traders began to hear this. 
Things began to look serious. 

Behind these few cabins in this stockade rose a towering 
forest of spruce, firs, hemlock, and pine. The underbrush 
was so thick and dense that one could pass through it only 
on the Indian trails. And this forest, as well as the dense 

[54] 



HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA 

black woods all along the river, on both sides — all about 
them everywhere — swarmed with Indians. They would 
be only too glad to kill the white men and capture the fort 
for the sake of the guns and bullets and powder, for the 
blankets and paint and copper kettles, that were in it. At 
this time the friendly Indians began to be shy, which was 
a bad sign. Then great numbers of strange Indians came 
into Baker's Bay from the north. They were the sullen, 
savage, grim-looking Indians whom Captain Meares had 
seen around Tatoosh Island and the Straits of San Juan 
de Fuca. These Indians pretended they came for the stur- 
geon fishing; but they held long councils. Things looked 
serious indeed. 

Duncan McDougall saw the danger, and he was an old 
Indian trader. He at once called a council of all the chiefs 
of the near-by tribes. When they were all squatting on 
their heels, in a semicircle, in Indian fashion, and had 
smoked their council pipe, he pulled a small bottle out of 
his pocket. McDougall handled the bottle with great 
care, and the Indians watched him keenly. 

"In this bottle," said trader McDougall, "I hold a 
great sickness. If I draw the cork, all of you will have 
it. But if you will be friends to the white men, I will let 
no harm come among you." 

The Indians quickly promised to be friendly. Perhaps 
the white traders saved themselves in this way. We do 
not know exactly. But this ruse was not nearly so pleasant 
or so funny as the one which Dr. John McLoughlin used 
at Fort Vancouver fifteen years later. 

[55] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Later on, the traders knew the whole truth. How 
Captain Thorn was so rough with the Indians that he 
had angered them, and they had come on deck one day, 
pretending to sell furs, and when many were on ship- 
board they had killed the crew and the traders. Not a 
man remained to tell the story. The Indian interpreter 
who had gone with them told It, later on, to the Indians 
near Fort Astoria. 

After the Beaver came, It seemed as though all would 
go well. Fort Okanogan was built that first summer, 
i8il, and now, after the Beaver came in. Fort Spokane 
was built, 1812; and both these forts In the upper country 
were successful In trading. You will read about adven- 
tures there In later chapters. 

But the very year after that, 18 13, because war had 
been declared between Great Britain and the United 
States, the Astorians were forced to sell their three forts 
to the Canadian fur traders, the North West Company of 
Montreal. They were shut off from all the world, since 
they had no ship and could not go home overland. The 
Indians were threatening again; their trading goods were 
running low, and they could hardly buy food, and did not 
dare to use the goods in trading for furs. The sale of 
the fort has been called treachery, but It was not. 

If you visit Astoria today, In the park on the hilltop you 
will find a fort built there, with a stockade of spiked logs 
around It. It Is thought to be a close copy of that tiny 
fort built at Astoria a hundred years ago. The first one, 
however, was built at the water's edge, with dense forests 

[56] 




From an old print 



Fort Oka\oga\ 




Front an old print 



An Indian Buffalo Hunt 



HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA 

all around it. It looked out over the broad Columbia andl 
the foaming breakers of the bar. If you look at it care- 
fully, you will see what a very small fort it was to stand 
all alone in the Indian country, on a wild, lonely coast. 



I57] 



CHAPTER VIII 

THAT "INDIAN" THIEF 

A SMALL log cabin, a lonely man, a dog — and some- 
thing else. What was the "something else" ? That 
was what Alexander Ross did not know, and that was why 
he was frightened. 

It was in the winter of 1811-12, the very winter after 
Astoria was founded, and it happened in this way: 

After the Americans had finished building, or nearly 
finished. Fort Astoria, in the summer of 18 11, they decided 
to build a new post on the upper Columbia somewhere. 
Just where, nobody knew; none of them had ever been 
there. But a rival company, the North West Company 
of Montreal, had come across the mountains and built a 
fort somewhere on the upper Columbia. 

In July of that year, therefore, the canoes were made 
ready for the men going up the river to found the new 
post. The clerks and partners did not know what sort 
of a voyage to expect, and some of them came to the river 
bank as though going on a picnic. One had a cloak, and 
another his umbrella. Others had books and papers, 
intending to read pleasantly as the canoemen paddled them 
up the beautiful river. The sun was bright and the 
weather serene. 

[58] 



THAT "INDIAN" THIEF 

Off they started in two Chinook canoes, each holding 
from fifteen to twenty packs of trading goods, besides 
flour, rice, and other food, and tobacco. Each pack 
weighed ninety pounds. In the American party there 
were only nine, besides Indian canoemen. A third canoe 
was filled with men of the North West Company, who 
had come down to the mouth of the river when they 
heard white men were there. 

Alexander Ross was one of the clerks, and he tells the 
story. 

Going up that river did not prove to be a picnic. 
Troubles began at once. The wind rose suddenly, and 
so did the waves. When they reached Tongue Point they 
had to unload the canoes and drag them across the por- 
tage there. When the wind died down a little they started 
off again. But a second time the wind arose, and on 
rounding a point a few miles above, the waves drove them 
into a sand bank. There they stuck, while water half 
filled the canoes, soaking everything. " Down came sail, 
mast, and rigging about our ears," wrote Ross. Books 
and newspapers went to the bottom; umbrellas and cloaks 
were thrown aside. Every man had to help empty the 
half-swamped canoes and drag them into deep water again. 
As soon as they could get ashore, they built camp fires, 
dried their goods and their clothing, spent the night there, 
and started afresh the next morning. 

But it was hard work all the way up the river, and they 
went up hundreds of miles. Above the Willamette, where 
the current was swift, they had to keep close in shore and 

[59] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

drag the canoes from point to point by the bushes and 
overhanging trees. At the Cascades they had to make a 
portage — or a "carry" — as well as at The Dalles, and 
again at Celilo Falls, because at these places the river was 
so swift and so rough they could not go upstream. And 
they had to unload their canoes, carry the goods overland, 
and the canoes as well, at these portages, in a land of 
thievish Indians, who tried constantly to steal small par- 
cels of goods which they would rip out of the bales. 

After the Astorians had passed through the gorge of 
the Columbia, where the mountains seem to have been 
split apart to let the river roll through, they found that 
they had left the forests behind them. This new country, 
east of the Cascade Mountains, was one of wide-rolling, 
treeless brown hills. Except as they bartered with the 
Indians, it was hard to get wood enough to cook their 
food. And the August sun was hot in this land of sand 
and sagebrush. 

After six weeks of paddling up the river, they reached 
the Okanogan, a pleasant river flowing into the Columbia 
from the north, and here the partner, Mr. Stuart, built 
his fort. His men cut down the cottonwood trees which 
bordered the Okanogan for this log cabin fort. There 
were no trees along the Columbia. Other logs were 
pulled from driftwood in a bend of the Columbia near 

by. 

The moment they landed and began their log cabin, 
Indians came about them. All talking was done by signs. 
Mr. Stuart and Mr. Ross opened a bale of tobacco, and 

[60] 



THAT "INDIAN" THIEF 

Indians and white men together had a grand smoke. The 
traders opened also their bale of goods, and said by signs 
that these paints and cottons and blankets and kettles would 
be given in exchange for furs. The Okanogan Indians sent 
runners to other tribes and soon throngs of Indians came 
and set up their tepees there, staying for several weeks 
and holding endless councils. 

By the time the visiting Indians went home, some furs 
had been traded and a start made on business. The cabin 
was almost finished. So Mr. Stuart sent four men back to 
Astoria to say that all was well. He took three more with 
him and went north with trading goods. Alexander Ross 
was left alone, with his little Spanish terrier, Weasel, in 
the unfinished log cabin. For Fort Okanogan was not 
really a fort at all. For several years it was nothing more 
than a log cabin, sixteen feet wide and twenty feet long. 

Ross tells all about that winter. Although the Indians 
were friendly, he was a little afraid of them; and he was 
lonely. But it was a land of bright sunshine, of clear blue 
skies, even if it was also a land of snow and cold. Ross 
liked that, and he liked to look out on the two great rivers 
rushing by, until winter came and they froze over. 

First, he "patched up the house a bit," so he says. In 
the daytime he traded with the slow, never-hurrying In- 
dians, and that took much time. They were shrewd 
traders, too, and knew exactly what they wanted. They 
asked for guns, with which to shoot their enemies, as well 
as to hunt; kettles In which to boil water; looking glasses; 
yellow and red paint for their faces; and for knives and 

[6i] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

blankets. The squaws wanted beads and thimbles, calicoes, 
and many other things. 

But the Indians were kindly enough to leave the "fort" 
at sundown and go to their own tepees. Ross then locked 
the door and tried to write down the Indian words he 
had learned during the day. And In the loneliness of that 
winter, he says the Bible was a great comfort to him. 

But the nights were truly awful. All Indians are con- 
stantly in fear of some enemy creeping up on them In the 
night. The Okanogans were always possessed with this 
fear, so that If one of them heard the slightest sound In 
the night, he would give the war whoop. Others would 
quickly awaken and begin to yell and whoop. Yet there 
never was an enemy there. Ross never knew whether 
these near-by Indians were being attacked or not; he only 
heard the racket. But the uproar frightened him awake 
and he expected every moment to see his door battered in. 
His hair grew gray, he says, because of his fears. 

Then came that " something else." 

One night when everything was quiet, Ross was awak- 
ened by Weasel's furious barking. The excited dog was 
dancing about on the cabin floor, and racing up and down. 
Ross was certain that an Indian thief was In his cabin; 
but he lay perfectly still for a few moments trying to think 
what to do. 

If he remained quiet, every Indian knew where his bunk 
was, and that would not save him. He thought of sev- 
eral plans. He could take the ramrod of his gun, which 
he had In his bunk, and poke up the fire which was not 

[62] 



THAT "INDIAN" THIEF 

far away. Yet If he stirred the hot ashes Into a glow, the 
Indian would see him. Or, he could fire into the dark; 
but he did not want to do that. At last he reached out 
and stirred the fire. It blazed up a little and he saw no 
one was there. But Weasel was racing back and forth 
over a small trap-door, barking furiously. Ross under- 
stood at once. Some Indian had found out about a little 
secret cellar he had made under the cabin, and was hiding 
there ! 

Ross at once lit a candle and set it where the light would 
shine Into the cellar. Then he took a pistol In one hand, 
and with the other cautiously lifted the trap-door. Some- 
thing was there ! Something dark was sitting on a bale of 
tobacco. 

Ross fired. In another moment he knew it was no 
Indian. It was a skunk! 

But that was only the beginning. The Indians had been 
awakened by Weasel's barking. Then they saw the light 
and heard the shot. Something was happening to their 
friend, the white man ! They rushed to his cabin, broke 
down the door, and poured into the little room. 

There, In the flickering candle-light, stood Ross with his 
smoking pistol, and at his feet the yelping, excited dog. 
They knew at once, of course, that he had shot a skunk, 
but being Indians they didn't mind that. The serious thing 
was that they saw the secret cellar, with the bales of 
coveted tobacco and trading goods. Ross understood the 
mischief of that. But things quieted down after a while 
and the Indians went back to their tepees. 

[63] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

After that night the Indians began to be a little un- 
friendly. They would not hunt for furs. Strange Indians 
came about the fort and set up their tepees there. Long 
councils were held, day after day, while the old, friendly 
Indians became very shy. That was a bad sign. Ross 
understood the whole thing perfectly. They were plotting 
to get rid of him. 

Ross did at once the only safe thing to do. He called 
a council of the chiefs. They came in their paint and 
feathers, and squatted solemnly on their heels in a half- 
circle. First they smoked the ceremonial pipe. Then Ross 
talked to them, partly in their own tongue. Mr. Stuart, 
when he left in October, had expected to return in one 
moon; four and five moons had gone by, yet he had not 
returned. Ross explained that this was because there 
were so many furs in the north country that Mr. Stuart 
had gone back to the White Man's Country, by the Bit- 
ter Waters (Fort Astoria, near the ocean), for more 
trading goods. Yet Ross did not really know. He was 
himself afraid that Mr. Stuart had been killed In the north. 

The Indians waited. Sure enough, when spring came, 
down from the north came Mr. Stuart, loaded with furs. 
He had been snowed In all winter, two hundred miles north 
of Fort Okanogan. 

Mr. Stuart had many furs. Ross brought out his. He 
had bought that lonely winter fifteen hundred beaver 
skins, besides other pelts. They locked up their log cabin 
fort, and told the Indians to take good care of It until 
they returned in the summer. So in the bright May sun- 

[64] 



THAT "INDIAN" THIEF 

shine of 1812, with the light breeze blowing, they stepped 
into their canoes, loaded with furs, and paddled down the 
Columbia to Astoria. 

Several years after, when another fort had to be built, 
the fur traders changed the location. They built also a 
stockaded wall of spiked logs, inside of which were sev- 
eral houses. When the gates were locked the Indians 
could not enter, but they were always friendly. They never 
did attack the fort. 



[65] 



CHAPTER IX 

AN EXCITING HORSE RACE 

"/^OX," called Mr. Clarke, the American partner in 
V^ charge of Fort Spokane, " Cox, come here." Ross 
Cox dropped his work and went to where Mr. Clarke was 
standing. The partner held an open letter in his hand, but 
he was looking out of the door with worry in his face. 
Cox, a clerk — a little, red-headed, good-natured Irishman 
- — knew at once it was something about furs. 

Now this was little more than a year after Alexander 
Ross had been frightened by the skunk in the cellar. Dur- 
ing that year the Astorians had built another trading post 
close to the Spokane House of the North West Company 
of Montreal, and not far from where the city of Spokane 
now Is. It was keen work between the Americans and the 
Canadians to see which could secure the greatest number 
of furs from the Indians. 

" Cox," said Mr. Clark, " I have a letter from Farnham, 
who has been trading In the Flathead country. He says 
he is now at the Coeur d'Alene River. He has only a few 
furs now, but the Flathead Indians following him are 
loaded down with beaver skins. They will not sell except 
for tobacco — and Farnham has no tobacco. 

"And I suppose," answered Cox, "that the Spokane 
House trader Is right there, too." 

[66] 



AN EXCITING HORSE RACE 

"Surely he is — but he is also out of tobacco. Farnham 
says whoever gets there first with tobacco will get the furs. 
You'll have to go at once." 

It was eleven o'clock in the morning then. Cox and 
Mr. Clarke at once discussed the question of horses. 

"You can't reach there today," said Mr. Clarke. 
"There isn't a horse that can travel those seventy-two 
miles before night." 

Cox thought for a few moments. 

"There isn't a Company horse, Mr. Clarke," he said 
at last. " But your horse, Le Bleu, could do it." 

Now Le Bleu, for his name was French, was a beauti- 
ful horse, white with bluish spots. He was seven years 
old and a good racer. In summer, when the fur trade 
was dull, the Indians and fur traders used to race horses 
on the plains near the forts, and "The Blue" had won 
every race. But Le Bleu was Mr. Clarke's own horse, 
and a great favorite with him. He hesitated, but then 
said: 

"Well, take Le Bleu. We must get those furs." 

One whole hour was wasted In efforts to catch 
" The Blue " and two other horses for the men who 
were to go with Cox. At last they were caught and 
saddled. 

Just at twelve o'clock, off started Cox with his men for 
the portage across the Pointed Heart River, for Pointed 
Heart is the meaning of the Coeur d'Alenes, as the old fur 
traders themselves explained. Literally it means " a heart 
of awls," because the Indians were such shrewd traders. 

[67] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

The light-hearted French-Canadians gave many a clever 
name in the Pacific Northwest to rivers to mountains 
and to Indians. 

Coils of rope tobacco hung from the pommel of Cox's 
saddle, as he cantered off with his men, just a few minutes 
ahead of a similar party which he saw starting from the 
near-by Spokane House. It was going to be nip and tuck 
between the rival forts for those furs. 

It was indeed an exciting race. Cox, on his beautiful 
horse, sped swiftly along the hard Indian trail which 
wound for sixty miles across the rolling plains. At a dis- 
tance lay the mountains, dark with the evergreen forests; 
but in the sunlight of that glorious May day they were 
only a soft mass of dark blue. On all sides stretched the 
sunlit country, green with fresh, tender grass, and bright 
with shining patches of wild flowers — red and blue and 
yellow and white. A light, soft breeze was blowing, and 
the sky was very blue. 

On and on cantered Le Bleu through the glory of the 
springtime. On and on came Cox's two men, though grad- 
ually dropping behind. And behind them, racing over 
those same sunlit plains and along the same hard Indian 
trail, with tobacco coiled around the pommel of their sad- 
dles, came the two Canadians from Spokane House. They 
also were determined to secure those furs. 

Gradually the sun sank in the west, and Cox, glancing 
back, could not see the others. But now the easy part of 
the race was over. Ahead of him lay ten miles through a 
thick forest, dark because the sun had set, and Cox did not 

[68] 



AN EXCITING HORSE RACE 

know the trail. Yet Le Bleu, splendid horse, seemed still 
quite fresh. So into the woods they went. 

Now even in bright sunlight the forests of the Pacific 
Northwest are dim, because the great trees tower two hun- 
dred feet or more, almost branchless, and topped with 
a soft green crown which keeps out the light. After sun- 
set, the forests are very dark indeed. 

Cox at first tried to guide the horse. But again and 
again man and horse found themselves tangled in a dense 
undergrowth, or in brushwood, or trying to crowd between 
trees so close together the horse could not pass through. 
Again and again, right In front of them, lay the great 
trunk of some fallen tree, a gloomy mass In the forest 
blackness. They got oft the trail so often that Cox began 
to be afraid the Canadians might win. They knew the 
trail well. Suppose they caught up with him, and even 
passed him! While he wondered, he was almost scraped 
off his horse by passing too close to a tree trunk. A 
moment later, a low-hanging branch of a stray poplar tree 
caught his head and shoulders and almost lifted him off 
his horse. 

By that time. Cox decided that Le Bleu knew that trail 
as well as he, for he did not know it at all. They were 
quite lost. So he held a loose rein and let Le Bleu go his 
own way. The horse quickly found the trail and kept It. 
On and on they went, slowly, plunging ahead into that 
dense darkness, while Cox wondered about the other men 
and the furs. 

Then, suddenly, out of that pitch blackness, they came 

[69] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

to the river. All along the bank were the graceful, taper- 
ing tepees of the Indians. In front of a long line of camp- 
fires the river swirled and rippled, white with foam, after 
having dashed down the rapids above. It sparkled with 
the lights from the campfires. It was a pretty sight: the 
tiny campfires lighting up the darkness, gleaming in the 
river beyond, and making great, flickering shadows to 
move among the tall trees. As the flames rose and fell, 
gigantic figures seemed to come and go among the tree- 
trunks. 

Cox shouted when he saw those lights. Le Bleu lifted 
his drooping head and galloped up to Farnham's tent in 
fine style. 

Cox jumped off his horse, shouted to Farnham, pulled 
off the pommel the thick twists of rope tobacco — and 
instantly found himself the center of a throng of Indians, 
wild for tobacco. At the first sight of horseman and 
tobacco they had rushed for him. 

Cox threw the tobacco to Farnham, and then took the 
saddle off the tired horse and turned the splendid fellow 
loose in some grass near by. 

Farnham directed the Indians to bring their furs to his 
tent. When they were safely stacked up, he gave tobacco 
to the red men. In an instant every head was lost in a 
cloud of blue smoke. The next morning the furs were 
sorted over and traded for in the usual way. 

Two hours after Le Bleu came in, the Canadians from 
Spokane House galloped up the trail to that line of flick- 
ering lights along the river bank. Both they and their 

[70] 



AN EXCITING HORSE RACE 

horses knew the way through the forest and had kept the 
trail much better than Cox had. Yet their horses were 
not so good. At midnight in came Cox's two men, and 
glad indeed were they to see the sparkling campfires. 

The next day the Canadians scolded the Indians for 
selling their furs to the Americans, because the Indians had 
traded with the North West Company and had known 
them much longer. But the Indians said they were "a 
very long time hungry for a smoke," and that they had a 
right to sell the furs to the first trader who brought them 
tobacco. 

So Le Bleu won the race, and the Americans won the 
furs. And the best of it was that the splendid horse was 
not injured by his hard run. After a week's rest he was 
as fresh as ever. When he went back over that trail with 
the fur traders and all those furs, he had no rider on his 
back and took things quite at his leisure, one might say. 



[71I 



CHAPTER X 

Adventures in the yakima valley 

TWO years after Cox's horse race, the fur traders had 
another adventure which had to do with horses. 
On account of the War of 1812, the Americans had sold 
out their fur posts to the Canadian fur traders, and went 
back to " the States " either by land or water. Alexander 
Ross, however, signed a contract with the North West 
Company of Montreal (the Canadian company), and 
stayed in the Oregon country. 

It was three years now since he had had his adventure 
with the skunk, and he had learned a good deal about 
Oregon Indians and how to deal with them. This spring 
of 1 8 15, the Brigade of Boats, having brought the furs 
down from the upper country to Astoria, or Fort George, 
were going up again. The name of the fort had been 
changed by the North West Company. They had their 
trading goods for the next year — pots and pans, knives 
and paint, guns and powder, blankets and calico and dress 
goods. The North West Company had bought Fort 
Okanogan and Fort Spokane of the Americans, but they 
had trading posts of their own in what Is now British 
Columbia. The packs of trading goods had to be taken 
north from Fort Okanogan by horses. 

[72] 



ADVENTURES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY 

When the traders that spring reached Okanogan, they 
found there were not enough horses to carry their goods 
north again. It was a serious matter. Without horses, 
no trading goods could go to the Indians. Without goods, 
the Indians would sell no furs. Without furs, they would 
lose money in their business. Their whole business in that 
country was to secure furs. 

The leader said, " We must buy more horses. Someone 
will have to go to the Yakima Valley." So he sent Alex- 
ander Ross. Ross was sent because he had been there 
once before to buy horses. 

Every year in the Yakima Valley the Indians east of 
the Cascade Mountains held a great fair. Thousands and 
thousands of them trailed over the hills and over the 
brown treeless plains of the Columbia to the grassy valley. 
It was not at all safe for a few white men to go among 
them at this time. This spring, 1815, it was really dan- 
gerous because the fur traders, in coming and going up and 
down the river, had quarreled with the Indians. White 
men and red had been killed on the upper Columbia. But 
danger or not, horses had to be bought. Ross started off 
with Tom McKay, a clerk; and with two French-Canadians 
and their Indian wives. The women were to help in 
driving the horses. 

On the fourth night, as they rode southward from 
Okanogan toward the Yakima Valley, a friendly chief 
learned where they were going. He knew their danger, so 
he sent warriors to warn them. 

Too worried to sleep, Ross lay wide awake in his camp 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

in the darkness. They all slept on the ground In the open 
air, with their feet to the fire. Ross knew they were all 
likely to lose their lives if they went on. Suddenly, he 
heard faint, rustling sounds near him, like some one creep- 
ing along the ground. Up he sprang in great alarm, 
shouting to his men. But at once, in low tones, Indian 
voices called out warningly: "White man! White man I 
Turn back! Turn back! You are all dead men!" 

They were the friendly warriors. 

That was startling. Ross knew then that the danger 
was greater than he had expected — that perhaps the 
Indians in the Yakima Valley were plotting directly against 
him. But he told the friendly Indians that the traders 
needed horses. He had to go on. They went back to 
their chief. The next morning, with a heavy heart, Ross 
started off again. Two days later the traders entered the 
Yakima Valley. 

The Indian fair at a distance was a very beautiful sight. 
Thousands of slender, graceful tepees were pitched in 
clusters in the broad sweep of the wide grassy valley and 
along the river's bank. In all, the camp was about six 
miles square. Three thousand Indian warriors were there, 
besides the women and children. On the wide-spreading 
slopes, nibbling at the green grass and the bright wild 
flowers, were ten thousand horses. These tribes were all 
rich in horses. 

The Indians were having a glorious time in the bright 
May sunshine. In one place they were racing horses, yell- 
ing wildly; others were racing on foot. In the tepees, or 

[74] 




Indians Stalking Buffalo 




Col^yn'glit by H'. S. Bowman 

Reclaiming Eastern Oregon 



ADVENTURES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY 

sitting on the warm ground in the bright sunshine, wrapped 
in their blankets, braves were gambhng with dice and the 
gambhng sticks. In some of the tepees, solemn councils 
were being held by the older warriors and chiefs. Feasts 
were being noisily eaten in others. Back from the moun- 
tains to the westward came hunters with fresh game, which 
the squaws cut up and cooked at once for feasts. In other 
places Indians were trading camas root and dried salmon^ 
or swapping horses. Here and there squaws were scrap- 
ing hides, or cooking on the little fires which glimmered 
on the ground. And all through the camp Indians were 
singing, dancing, drumming on the tom-toms, yelling and 
whooping. 

This was the picture which Ross saw as he entered the 
valley. He wondered whether he would leave it alive. 

The traders spurred On their horses and rode toward 
the center of the camp, where they knew the greater chiefs 
would pitch their tepees. They seemed to see no one. But 
the Indians saw them, and followed them, with angry looks 
and words, as well as with hasty feet. The moment they 
reached the chiefs' tepees the traders dismounted; at once, 
with yells and war whoops, the warriors seized their horses 
and drove them away. 

But even the chiefs were hostile. Referring to the quar- 
rels on the upper Columbia, they said: "These are the men 
who kill our relations. These are the people who make 
us raise the death-wail." Then Ross knew, as he tells us, 
that he "stood on very slippery ground." 

Ross paid no attention to the words of the chief. He 

[75] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

opened his trading goods, explaining that he wished to 
trade for horses. 

The jeering Indians at once drove up a horse. They 
traded It at a high price, took the trading goods, and then 
took the horse, too. Ross showed neither anger nor fear. 
His men stood quietly by. [They all knew their lives were 
at stake. The Indians brought up another horse. Ross 
traded for it quietly. The moment the price was paid, 
the Indians took the goods and the horse. So it went on. 
Every trade was made in the midst of wild uproar, in a 
circle of angry Indians who jeered and yelled, knowing, 
as they did, that the traders were entirely in their power. 
Horse after horse, bought and paid for, was driven away 
with whoops and laughter. 

For two days Ross stood in that one spot and traded 
for horses. The Indians were about as much during the 
night as during the day. The traders could see the sun 
set, the darkness gradually fall, and the glow of the many 
campfires. Even the smell of cooking food came to them; 
yet they had neither light, nor food, nor rest. The Indians 
refused them any food. They dared not sleep. 

The danger grew greater. On the third day Ross heard 
the Indians planning to kill or make slaves of the two 
Indian women who were the wives of the French-Cana- 
dians. There seemed no chance of escape, for throngs 
of Indians surrounded them in that great camp. Miles to 
the right of them, to the left of them, in front and behind, 
almost as far as the eye could see even in that clear bright 
air, were the tapering, slender Indian tepees. 

[76] 



ADVENTURES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY 

The only chance of saving the women was to send them 
by an unknown trail in the mountains to the westward, and 
then to the north. Yet even if they escaped they might 
starve on the way. Ross gave them orders how to go, and 
told them to wait four days at the mouth of a certain 
river. If he did not come then, they were to return to 
Fort Okanogan and tell the traders there what had hap- 
pened. There was little chance that the women would 
ever reach it. 

That night, as soon as it was dark, the two women, m 
their Indian dress, with blankets over their heads, slipped 
through the camp, up the wide Yakima Valley into the 
mountains. But the next day the Indians found they 
had escaped! They turned over all the parcels, searched 
every nook and corner, yet could not find them. The 
danger of the traders was greater than ever. 

The Indians tried to anger Ross's men. Their guns 
were snatched, fired off at their feet, and then with wild 
laughter the Indians threw the guns down. They snatched 
the hats off the men, put them on their own heads, and 
strutted about mockingly. Then, jeering, flung them back 
at their owners. Ross was the chief; so they dared not 
yet touch him. 

The fourth day, half starved, Ross ordered his men to 
cook something for him and for themselves. All they had 
had to eat for these days had been a few raw roots. These 
they had pulled up out of the ground around them when, 
for a moment, the attention of the Indians was distracted. 

The French-Canadians took out a kettle. The moment 

[77] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

the kettle was on the fire, five or six Indian spears were 
thrust under the handle, the kettle pulled off, the water 
thrown out, and the kettle flung to one side. To give 
further warning, thirty or forty Indians standing about 
fired into the glowing coals. A great cloud of ashes, 
smoke, sparks, and dust arose. It was a strong hint not 
to put the kettle on again. 

If Ross or his men had at any time shown fear or anger 
they would not have lived more than a few hours. The 
Indians were deliberately trying to make them angry, 
because anger puts one at such a disadvantage. But so 
long as the men were perfectly cool, the Indians were 
almost afraid to touch them. One reason was that they 
feared the anger of the traders at the posts. They could 
not buy shot, or powder, or guns. Neither could they 
trade for anything else. And yet a moment's anger would 
have ended everything. 

At this moment, the Canadian who had put the kettle 
on the fire took his knife out to cut off a piece of dried 
venison. A Yakima chief snatched it out of his hand. 
Ross's man lost his temper. He said in an angry voice, 
"I'll have my knife from that villain, life or death!" 

"NOl" said Ross. 

The chief, noting how angry the man was, took a step 
forward. He threw back his blanket and raised his arm 
with the knife in his fist. The point was downward. He 
made a motion as if to stab the unlucky Canadian. 

That would settle things, one way or another. The 
yells of the Indians ceased. They crowded around the 

[78] 



ADVENTURES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY 

four men. There was dead silence. The suspense was 
terrible as the chief stood there, with hand upraised to 
strike. The only thing to do, Ross thought, was to sell 
their lives as dearly as possible. 

He put his hand to his belt to pull out his pistol and 
moved a step forward. But even as he put down his foot, 
another thought flashed across him. Instead of his pistol, 
he drew out his own knife. 

"Here, my friend," he said quietly to the chief, "is a 
white chief's knife. I give it to you. That is not a chief's 
knife. Give it back to the man." 

The chief took Ross's knife and stood there sullenly. 
Ross said afterwards their lives hung by a thread. Every 
Indian watched Ross and the chief, silent, waiting for 
what would happen. Suddenly the chief handed to the 
Canadian his knife, and held up Ross's knife to his people, 
much as a pleased child would. 

" Look, my friends," he said with delight. " Look at 
the chief's knife." 

The Indians crowded around him to see the knife. In 
his sudden joy the chief began to say that the white men 
were his friends. At once, other chiefs began to say to 
their warriors that the white men were their friends. For 
the moment the danger was over. 

The chiefs at once called a council. They squatted on 
their heels in a half-circle on the ground and began to 
smoke the pipe of peace. As the pipe passed from one 
chief to another, each taking a whiff, Ross gave to each 
of th6 six leading chiefs a small looking-glass, with paper 

[79] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

backing and cover, and a little red paint. The chiefs, as 
a return gift, gave to Ross two horses and twelve beaver 
skins. But best of all, Lidian women brought in food for 
the half-starved men. 

After the pipe had gone around once, Ross made a 
speech to the Indians. He asked them what he should 
tell the great white chief when he asked where the horses 
were. Ross said, " He will ask, ' Where are all the horses 
you bought from the Indians?'" 

The Indians were ashamed. 

"Tell him," a Yakima chief said at last, "that we have 
but one mouth and one word. All the horses you bought 
are yours. They shall be given to you." 

By this time it was sunset. Ross wanted to get his 
horses together and escape before the Indians became 
unfriendly again. And besides, every day of delay for the 
fur traders who were waiting for the horses meant a loss 
in trade. This last reason he gave to the chief. 

The Yakima at once mounted his horse, told Ross to 
mount one of those given as a present, and directed his son 
to take charge of Ross's men until he returned. They 
rode off. 

Such a night as that was ! All through the hours of 
darkness Ross and the chief rode from one group of 
tepees to another, the Yakima calling out, " Deliver up 
the horses." They visited every section of that great 
camp, spread for miles over the wide sweep of the green 
valley. Such a din and roar and crash of sound! Scalp- 
dances here and there, with hideous yells as the dancers 

[80] 



ADVENTURES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY 

circled about the camp fire; the beating of tom-toms; the 
howling of wild Indian dogs; the grunting of chained 
bears; chained wolves sent out their weird howls; children 
were screaming; women were scolding; horses were neigh- 
ing and trampling about, thousands of them. And amidst 
all this din, up and down, in and out among the tepees, 
among the crowds who were whooping, yelling, dancing, 
drumming, rode Ross and the Yakima chief, calling out 
in the uproar, *' Deliver up the horses." 

If the braves were slow in bringing the horses, the chief 
would make a "talk." At the end of each talk he would 
say to Ross, " I have spoken well in your favor." Ross 
would at once make him a present. 

At daylight, after all night in the noise and confusion, 
Ross and the chief returned with the horses. The men 
and the little trading property they had left were safe. 
By six o'clock the eighty-five horses they had bought were 
ready to be driven away. Ross ordered his men to make 
ready for leaving. 

But again the mood of the Indians changed: They 
made all the trouble they could. They jeered at the men; 
they frightened the horses; they seized the traders' guns 
and fired them off; they asked for everything they saw. 
While the men were trying to get off with the unruly 
horses, some of them wild and unbroken, the Indians took 
their knives, their belts, their hats, their pipes, and even 
demanded the buttons off their clothes. 

Finally Tom McKay and the two French-Canadians got 
away, with the horses. Ross had to stay behind to parley 

[8i] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

with the chiefs. When he did at last get away, on an 
ugly, restive horse which kept trying to throw him, his 
men were far ahead. As he rode on, he saw three Indians 
coming at full speed on their horses toward him. 

Ross quickly dashed down a ravine, swam his horse 
across the stream at the bottom, and hid behind a rock 
while he primed his gun. He thought they were enemies. 
The moment the Indians got to the opposite bank of the 
stream, Ross motioned them to stay there, or he would 
fire. But the Indians called out, "Your friends! Your 
friends!" 

Sure enough! They were warriors sent out by that 
friendly chief who had warned him. He knew the hos- 
tility of that great camp and he had sent his warriors to 
help the white men if they could. 

It took several days to reach Fort Okanogan. On 
their way they found the two Indian wives who had 
escaped through the mountains, and, between them all, 
they drove that unruly band of horses to the fort. 



[82] 



CHAPTER XI 

DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA 

**T SHALL build a trading fort near the Forks of the 
A Columbia," said Donald McKenzIe to the officers of 
the North West Company at Fort George (Astoria). 
"The Forks are the most dangerous point on the Colum- 
bia River. I shall make the Indians see that we are 
friends, not enemies." 

By the Forks of the Columbia, McKenzie meant the 
point where the Snake River flows into the Columbia. 

This was in 1818, only three years after Alexander Ross 
had had his horse-buying adventure in the Yakima Valley. 
The Indians had said to Ross then, "These are the men 
who kill our relations," and there had been sharp little 
fights since then. The Forks were not so very far below 
the Yakima Valley. 

So Donald McKenzie began to plan for his fort. He 
was a big, powerful man, and the Indians admired him 
much because of his size. But they did not want a fort 
at the Columbia, and that was why Fort Walla Walla — 
Fort Nez Perces it was sometimes called — was a dan- 
gerous point. 

McKenzie had only ninety-five men with him, and many 
of them could not be trusted. Some were Iroquois Indians 

[83] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

from the eastern part of Canada, along the St. Lawrence; 
some were Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands; a few 
were French-Canadian boatmen; only a half-dozen or 
fewer were British. Alexander Ross was McKenzie's first 
officer, and he tells the story. 

Half a mile north of the pretty little Walla Walla 
River, and about nine miles south of the Snake River, the 
Brigade of Boats from Fort George, with ninety-five 
men, drew up to land. Many Indians were encamped 
there. 

Now, usually, when the white men landed anywhere, the 
Indians went to meet them — but not this time. Not an 
Indian put out his hand to the white man; not the least 
joy was shown; not even a request for tobacco. In their 
tepees of buffalo hides the red men stayed, or lounged 
about on the sandy ground. That meant trouble. 

McKenzie paid no attention to this coldness. He or- 
dered his own tent set up and the boats unloaded. The 
food and trading goods and guns had to be guarded and 
a fort had to be built. 

Not a piece of wood was there at that point with which 
to build a fort. It was a dry, sandy, treeless spot. There 
was not a tree for miles. Far to the southeast lay the 
soft, shimmering blue mass of the Blue Mountains, and 
there were trees there. But that was a long way off. 
There were no bricks; there were not enough stones to 
build a fort, and even if there had been, they were not 
regular enough in size. There was no mortar or plaster 
to hold the stones together. Yet a fort was to be built 

[84] 



DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA 

on this dry, sandy point, where they could not even have 
a garden. 

McKenzIe sent one band of men toward the Blue Moun- 
tains to cut down trees and float them down the smaller 
streams to the Columbia. He sent another band to catch 
driftwood from a bend In the Columbia just above them, 
a bend where the swirl of the current left driftwood on 
the bank, or carried It close inshore. Another group of 
men guarded the property. 

The Indians still held aloof. The principal chief. In- 
stead of talking to the whites, paid no attention to them. 
He wrapped himself "In his blanket and his dignity" 
and strode from camp to camp, among his people, urging 
them not to trade with the white men. Other Indians 
came also, for the news was sent out by runners. Before 
long there were thousands of Indians who pitched their 
tepees along the Columbia near these few white men. 

It was a beautiful scene. In spite of the danger. Fishes 
leaped In the sunny waters of the broad Columbia as it 
swept beside the camp; horses grazed on the brown, tree- 
less, rolling prairies around them; Indians raced horses 
on the plains, or swam In the river, or smoked among 
their tepees. Little columns of smoke curled upward In 
the still air, and tiny lights glimmered here and there in 
the twilight, as the Indian women cooked for their fam- 
ilies. At night, in groups, they gathered to hear some 
story-teller retell the myths and legends of the tribe. In 
daytime, the children played about, almost naked, In the 
heat. Sometimes they came to stare at the traders, and 

[85] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

said to each other, "What do these people want here? 
Are they going to kill more of our relatives?" Still more 
Indians paddled down the river in dugouts, or came 
over the brown, rolling hills on their horses. 

Then these thousands of Indians began to demand 
presents. They said the white men should not use their 
land for a fort; they should not take their driftwood out 
of the river; should not catch the Indians' fish; should 
not cut the trees of the Indians on the mountains. The 
Indians claimed ownership of everything. 

Too many trading goods would not have been safe until 
he had a fort built, so Ross had brought few with him. 
If he gave even a very small gift to each warrior, there 
would not be enough to go around. That would make 
even more trouble. 

When the Indians demanded gifts, therefore, McKenzie 
said, "No." He said it was a good thing for the Indians 
to have a fort where they could trade at any time. Other 
Indians liked it, he told them. He would give them no 
presents. 

A few Indians had been selling them a little food; now 
this stopped. Great councils were held. McKenzie saw 
the danger and sent out for his scattered men. 

The Iroquois and the Kanakas and the French-Cana- 
dians came down from the mountains and from the river 
banks where they had been securing wood. The baggage 
was piled up to form a hollow square. As the Indians 
one day suddenly became very threatening, McKenzie 
ordered his men to stand on all sides of that square, with 

[86] 



DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA 

their backs to the baggage and each other. Their guns 
had been cleaned and were ready for use. Their knives 
were sharpened. If there was to be a fight, none of them 
could escape. But they thought that by being ready for 
battle, and showing no fear, perhaps they could avoid an 
actual fight. 

The Indians around demanded gifts. McKenzie re- 
fused. For five days and nights the men stood guard, 
alert every moment. No food could be bought, and the 
last night there was nothing to eat at all. They dared 
not leave the camp long enough to catch the fish leaping 
in the river. Without shade or shelter, in the blazing 
August sun, in that hot, sandy country, they kept watch. 

Despite the danger and the weariness of the hungry 
men, McKenzie told the Indians he would give them no 
presents. They seemed so bold and so fearless, at last 
the Indians yielded. They told McKenzie he might build 
his fort. They even brought food to the starving men and 
sold it to them. 

That ended the first danger. 

Still, the Indians might change again, might again de- 
mand gifts and might attack them. Yet McKenzie divided 
his men as before, sending some to the Blue Mountains, 
some to the bend for driftwood, and kept a guard to 
protect the trading goods. When wood enough had been 
floated down the Columbia and the Walla Walla to build 
a fort, the men came in and began the actual work of 
erecting it. 

Because the Forks was such a dangerous place. Fort 

[87] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Walla Walla was the strongest of all the Old Oregon 
trading posts. 

The fort was square, and the walls of very heavy slabs. 
These slabs, cut from the driftwood caught, and the logs 
sent down the rivers, were set in two rows. They were 
so set that each slab of one row protected the crack 
between any two slabs of the other row, in this way: 



The walls were twenty feet high. On the inside of this 
stockade, five feet below the top, was built a narrow 
platform, running all around the walls, so that a guard, 
in case of danger, might patrol the walls, and perhaps 
look over. On each corner was built a blockhouse, two 
stories high, and thus higher than the walls. In the 
blockhouses, with their loopholes for guns, and their sup- 
ply of guns standing in the corners, were great tanks of 
water. The country was such a dry one, with gales of 
wind that swirled the dust and sand into great clouds, that 
the traders feared fire more than anything else. There 
were small cannon on the walls, over the gate, and in the 
blockhouses. 

Inside the stockade, a heavy wall of spiked logs divided 
the space into two. In the inner section were the log 
cabins where the men lived, the blacksmith's shop, and a 
few other small buildings. The Indian shop, where pay- 
ment was made for the furs, was just on the inside of this 

[88] 



DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA 



spiked wall, with the narrow trading window, eighteen 
inches square, cut through the wall. In this spiked wall 
were loopholes for guns. The main gate on the outer 
wall was a large one, but cut in that was a very small one, 
through which only one person could enter at a time. 

All this care was against treachery. If the large gate 
were opened, on ordinary occasions, perhaps many Indians 
might rush in and keep it open; so the small gate was 
used. But if, through treachery, they did break into the 
outer half of Fort Walla Walla, they found themselves 
in a "pen" — themselves shut in by walls through which 
muskets could be aimed at them — and with the blue sky 
overhead. 

When built, the arrangement of the fort was some- 
thing like the outline shown below. This, however, does 
not show the log cabins inside the walls. 



3 '2 



n 



But even after the fort was completed, the Indians, for 
many years, were not very friendly. They liked to annoy 
the traders, even if they did not often threaten them. 

An Indian would come to the small gate, and knock. 
When Ross, or the man in charge, looked out of the little 

[89] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

window which could be opened for that purpose, the 
Indian would say, "Give me a gun." But he had nothing 
to pay for it. " Give me some powder," another would 
say. Still another would demand, " Give me a knife." 

If the clerk in charge gave to one, he would have to 
give to all. The traders were there to buy and sell, not 
to make an endless number of presents. But if Ross 
refused, as he usually did, they became resentful. 

"Why are the white men so stingy?" they would say. 
"Get off our lands." 

Sometimes an Indian would come and rap at the gate. 
When Ross answered, he would say, " I want to trade," 
and then jeer at Ross. He did not want to trade at all; 
he had no goods and only wanted to bother. 

These Indians were the Walla Wallas, the Cayuses, the 
Yakimas, the Nez Perces, and others of eastern Washing- 
ton and Oregon. They were the bold, daring "horse 
Indians," and very different from the "canoe Indians" of 
the lower Columbia and of Puget Sound. They did noth- 
ing but hunt, gamble, race horses, or go to war, and after- 
wards have their scalp-dances. Except when fighting or 
hunting, they were always idle. Ross could see them, on 
every little knoll, all day long, painting their faces with 
red and yellow and green and black. They seemed always 
to have a paint brush in one hand and a looking glass in 
the other. 

After a few years, however, the Indians of this section 
found that it really was a good thing to have a fur-trading 
post on their lands. They found that these white men 

[90] 




From tlic Painting by Cliarlcs M. Russeil 

A War Party 




Photograpli by Lcc Moorhouse from an old print 

An Indian Dance 



DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA 

really were their friends. So they came to like the fort, 
although the traders always felt it was a fort with possi- 
bilities of grave danger. 

Many years later, in 1842, this wood fort burned down. 
The fire was accidental, and the Indians protected the 
trading goods, and helped the traders to save everything 
they could. They felt very differently toward the fort 
and toward the white men than they had twenty years 
before. Still, they were Indians, and one never knew 
just what an Indian would do, as this gunpowder story 
shows. It occurred when they were building a new fort. 

You will remember there was no wood around Fort 
Walla Walla, except driftwood in the Columbia. In order 
to get wood for saddles, the traders had to go to the 
Blue Mountains, forty miles away, cut the trees, trim them, 
float the logs down the streams to the little Walla Walla 
River, and then haul them overland the few remaining 
miles to the fort. Many saddles were made at the fort, 
for the pack horses of the fur company went north from 
Fort Walla Walla, as well as eastward to the Snake River 
country and northeast to the Flatheads. Saddle wood, 
therefore, when dried and ready for use, was very 
valuable. 

One day the son of Peo-peo-mox-mox, the famous Walla 
Walla chief, walked into the saddler's shop and took some 
of the wood. The saddle-maker forbade his doing so 
again. The next day the young Indian came back and 
took more. Archibald McKinlay, who had charge of 
Fort Walla Walla, knew that this was going on. That 

[91] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

day, when he saw the young Indian taking more saddle- 
wood, he sent a clerk named Todd to stop him. 

Todd went toward the saddler's shop and entered. 
Before you could say "Jack Robinson" — so McKinlay 
said in telling the story afterwards — he saw Todd and 
the Indian plunge through the doorway fighting. 

McKinlay ran to separate them, but before he could 
reach them, Todd had thrown the Indian to the ground. 
McKinlay demanded the Indian's name, for chief's son 
though he was he was not known at the fort. 

He was the son of Peo-peo-mox-mox, he said. At once 
McKinlay knew there would be trouble. To knock down 
a chief's son ! The new fort, of adobe mud-bricks, was 
nearly finished, but there were yet no gates. All the men 
of the fort were in the fields, ten miles away. McKinlay, 
Todd, and the saddler were the only white men there. 

An hour later, Peo-peo-mox-mox and his son, with fifty 
or sixty angry Indians, swarmed into the gateless walls of 
the fort, and trooped into the dwelling, through the 
kitchen, into McKinlay's room. McKinlay, with great 
politeness, offered the chief a chair. Ignoring the chair, 
the chief sprang past him and caught Todd. He lifted 
his tomahawk high. McKinlay caught his arm just in 
time to prevent his bringing it down on Todd's head. 
Peo-peo-mox-mox turned on McKinlay, and the two chiefs, 
red and white, began to struggle. The other Indians let 
go of Todd and stood back, watching the leaders. Mc- 
Kinlay, in the fight, managed to drag the chief toward his 
desk where there were three pistols; yet he was not sure 

[92] 



DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA 

that they were loaded. He caught them, tossed one to 
Todd, but ordered him not to fire without a command. 

Suddenly Peo-peo-mox-mox freed himself from Mc- 
Kinlay's grasp and drew back. He opened his blanket, 
baring his chest. 

"Shoot me!" he said scornfully. "You shoot a man!" 

" I don't want to shoot you," said McKinlay. " But if 
you raise that tomahawk again, I certainly will fire." 

Then they talked a while about the matter. The chief 
insisted that Todd must be thrashed. To do that, of 
course, would be a great disgrace in the eyes of the 
Indians, who looked upon the white men as superior 
beings. And of course the Hudson's Bay Company would 
have to send out of the country a man who was looked 
down upon by the Indians. 

While they talked, a young warrior struck McKinlay. 
That was such an insult that McKinlay caught him by the 
hair, intending to strike him. But that, he remembered, 
would be sure death for himself and Todd, would cause 
a war between the whites and the Indians, and make 
trouble that would last for years. There would be no 
chance of escape, for the room was crowded with Indians 
and only the two white men there. 

Suddenly a thought came to him. He sprang into the 
next room, seized a keg of gunpowder, and pulled it to 
the door. Wrenching off the top, he held over It a flint 
and steel, ready to strike. Flints and steels were used in 
olden times to make a spark, before matches came into 
use. If he had struck — if a single spark had fallen into 

[93] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

that keg of powder — well, anybody knows what would 
have happened. The Indians knew it certainly. In a 
twinkling there was not a redskin in the fort except old 
Peo-peo-mox-mox and his son. The rest fled — out 
through the kitchen, through the yard of the fort and the 
gateless walls into the free space beyond. 

The chief stood still for a moment. Then he said, 
scornfully: 

" Don't you think you are smart to frighten my young 
men so ! I have heard that you white people fight duels. 
Now let's you and I fight." 

McKinlay answered — and he himself tells the story — 
"There are only six white men at this fort and six hun- 
dred of your people. Now if you kill me, there is no 
other white chief to take my place. But if I kill you, 
there are plenty of warriors in your tribe who would 
make as good a chief as you are." 

The old chief went off at once in great anger. 

A day or two later another chief, Five Crows, came 
into, the fort. He had not heard of the trouble, so 
McKinlay told him. He said, "It is a great disgrace for 
a chief's son to be thrashed. It will make trouble." 

Yet Five Crows was friendly to the fur traders. After 
a few days of really hard trying, he made peace between 
Chief Peo-peo-mox-mox and McKinlay. The trader gave 
a suit of clothes to the chief; the chief gave the trader a 
fine horse. So they smoked the pipe of peace. 

When the missionaries came across the plains, begin- 

[94] 



DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA 

ning In 1834, and the emigrants years later, they found 
Fort Walla Walla friendly to them, and very helpful, 
after those long hard months on the plains and in the 
mountains. They could buy there coffee and sugar and 
flour, as well as fresh fish and vegetables — things which 
they had gone without for weeks and months. Turkeys 
and chickens fluttered about the fort, pigs grunted In their 
pens, and cows, In the pasture not more than a mile or two 
away, gave fresh milk and made butter possible. There 
were rough bunks for beds, but that was better than the 
ground. Chairs made out of tree trunks were more com- 
fortable than sitting on the ground. Food eaten from 
the table there was not full of the dust and sand of the 
desert, as It had been when they were In what Is now 
Idaho, when the breeze blew dust Into their food, while 
the hot sun poured down upon them. 

Later the settlers came. Unless the Immigrants were 
too many, there were often old bateaux — large open 
boats — which could be paddled down the river from Fort 
Walla Walla. Then the bedding and clothing and fur- 
niture were piled In great heaps In the open boats, people 
sat down on their baggage, and little children were tied 
fast to prevent their falling overboard. If too many peo- 
ple came at once, after settlement began, the Immigrants 
had to follow the river trail to The Dalles. From there 
they could get boats, while the cattle and horses and 
wagons went overland. 



[95] 



CHAPTER XII 

FORT VANCOUVER AND DR. JOHN m'LOUGHLIN 

ABOUT three years after Donald McKenzIe, in the 
employ of the North West Company of Montreal, 
had built Fort Walla Walla, that company united with the 
Hudson's Bay Company. This English company was very 
famous. Its charter had been granted for a hundred and 
fifty years, but all its trading had been in the country 
whose waters flowed into Hudson's Bay. Now by merg- 
ing with the North West Company, they had a license to 
trade in the Oregon country. 

Many changes were made in the trading forts within the 
first few years. In 1824 the Hudson's Bay Company 
decided to abandon Fort Astoria at the mouth of the 
Columbia, and build a central fort farther up the river. 
There were many reasons for this. One was that Astoria 
was too damp for the furs. In the damp coolness of the 
lower river, also, farming was poor; therefore all the 
food supplies had to be sent from England. This was 
expensive. Another reason was that furs would keep 
better in the drier, sunnier climate at the new point. This 
new place, now the city of Vancouver, on the Columbia, 
was nearer the upper country. The brigades would not 
have so far to come, and they would be nearer many 
Indian tribes who had many furs. 

[96] 



FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN 

Dr. John McLoughlin, six feet tall and more, blue-eyed, 
rosy-cheeked, white-haired, was sent to take charge of 
the fur trade of the Oregon country. He it was who 
decided to build the new fort, and he called it Fort Van- 
couver. 

Nearly a mile back from the river, on a broad, high 
prairie, they built the first Fort Vancouver. This was 
begun about December, 1824. All the men were up there 
and all the furs had been carried there by May, 1825, 
although the fort was not completed. 

Fort Vancouver had no blockhouses, for the canoe 
Indians of the Columbia River were rather friendly to 
them. They were not so warlike as the "horse Indians" 
east of the Cascades. Still there was danger in the earlier 
years of the fort. 

Not long after coming to the new fort, Dr. McLoughlin 
heard that many Indian councils were being held in the 
forests near by. Many strange Indians appeared. If the 
Indians could get all those trading goods without bother- 
ing to trap beavers, so much the better 1 Beaver skins 
were used to pay for the goods. The white men were 
few; the Indians were countless. 

At once Dr. McLoughlin saw the danger. He sent out 
Indian runners, calling a council of the tribes with whom 
they traded. The chiefs came. Wild and savage, wrapped 
in their blankets, they entered the gates of the new fort 
and squatted on their heels, Indian fashion, in a large 
semicircle. After a while, in their slow way, they were 
ready for a council. But Dr. McLoughlin was not. He 

[97] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

knew how to manage Indians. He wanted these great 
chiefs to understand that he was a njer'^ great chief — so 
he kept them waiting for him an hour. But as they 
waited, squatting in that circle in the fort yard, he sent 
out a Scotch trader, who was also a bagpiper. Up and 
down the fort yard the Scot strode, with those wailing, 
squeaking bagpipes clapped under his arm, playing for 
those Indians. They watched that canny Scot with great 
admiration. The music of the pipes played by that bare- 
kneed piper charmed them. The great white chief had 
won. When Dr. McLoughlin came among them, they 
were only too ready to promise peace and friendship and 
furs. The Indians came as enemies. They went away as 
friends. 

This victory was not all due to the bagpipes. Dr. 
McLoughlin was a man of whom the Indians stood in awe. 
He was the "White-Eagle Chief," because of his long 
white liair. He was very commanding in manner, and 
since he knew how to deal with Indians, he kept peace 
with them and kept them quiet. This made many furs 
for the fur trade. But also when American settlers first 
came into Oregon, it made it possible for them to take 
up farms without being murdered. Only at night at Fort 
Vancouver were the gates of the stockade shut. The 
Indians never did attack the fort. 

Four years after the building of the first fort, it was 
abandoned. The new fort was at the same point, but 
nearer the river. All the furs coming from the Brigade 
of Boats, or from the Indians who came to bring them, 

[98] 



FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN 

had to be carried from the river to the fort. All the 
water used, for washing or drinking or cooking, had to 
be carried from the river to the fort. It was too far 
back, so the new fort was built, just high enough to 
escape the floods. This second fort Is the one which the 
Americans knew when they came in as settlers. 

The location was a beautiful one. Before them rolled 
the mighty Columbia, miles wide in the spring-time, car- 
rying down great trees, uprooted in the floods, as though 
they were chips. All around were the dark forests on the 
rolling hills which bordered the Columbia. And above the 
blackness of the evergreens gleamed the shining white of 
the snow-capped mountains, Mount Hood being in full 
view. 

One of the near-by chiefs, named Casinove — though 
his name is spelled in many ways — liked to receive much 
attention from the white men. He was a great chief. He 
had many slaves and many wives, which showed that he 
was a rich man. When Casinove came to the fort to trade 
furs, he was paddled in his great war canoe by his slaves. 
He was received at the river bank with ceremony by the 
traders. As he walked the short distance to the fort, his 
slaves went ahead putting down otter skins and beaver furs 
on the road, so that the feet of the mighty chief might 
not touch the earth. After the furs were traded and he 
was about to return to his canoe, the fur traders sent their 
servants ahead of this great one. They, in turn, covered 
the earth over which he walked with the blankets, woolen 
goods, calicoes, and clothing which he had bought. Per- 

[99] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

haps it was a little hard on the furs and the blankets, if 
the weather was not fine. 

The life of the traders at the fort was a busy one. The 
gardener was busy in his garden, among the vegetables or 
among the fruit trees, setting out new trees, pruning the 
old, and guarding them. Fruit was precious in those days. 
Eight thousand miles of ocean and two thousand miles 
of land lay between Fort Vancouver and the fruit trees 
of England, or of "the States." "America" was a long, 
long way from Oregon. 

The farmers ploughed the plains near the fort. Rye 
and wheat and oats and pease and potatoes were sowed 
wherever the soil was good. Swineherds looked after the 
large droves of pigs. Herders tried to manage and tame 
the cattle which had been driven up from Mexican Cali- 
fornia, over the mountains and across the rivers, hundreds 
of miles, to Fort Vancouver. Some of the best were sent 
by ship from London. Loggers were cutting down the 
trees, so that more land might be cleared for the wheat 
and rye. The sawmills were busy sawing timber, which 
they sold in the Hawaiian Islands. 

In the fort itself men were always busy. There were 
furs to be beaten and brushed to keep them from becom- 
ing mouldy, or eaten by insects. In the Indian shop, the 
trader stood at his little window and bought the furs the 
Indians brought in, paying in blankets and kettles and 
guns. Indians were coming and going, and the bright 
gleam of paddles from canoes crossing the river, or pad- 
dling up and down, flashed in the sunshine. There was 

[lOO] 



FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN 

even a baker there, with a great out-of-doors oven, who 
was busy baking bread as well as meats for the hungry 
men. Often there were two hundred men busy at the fort 
and around it 

There were two great events every year at Fort Van- 
couver. The first one was when the Brigade of Boats 
came down the river; the second, when the "home ship" 
came In from England. 

The Brigade of Boats came down the river each sum- 
mer, In June, to Fort Vancouver. It was the fleet of 
canoes which brought the furs down from the upper 
country. From far away In the north, on horseback, at 
a certain date, would start the men In charge of the fort 
farthest away. They came to the next fort, where more 
men and furs joined them. So down they came through 
what Is now British Columbia, to the fort farthest north 
on the Columbia River. Here they left the horses 
and stacked the furs In the canoes. On they paddled, 
singing cheerily, to the next fort, and so on down, picking 
up furs and men all the way to Fort Vancouver. Fort 
Walla Walla was the last fort on the southern part of the 
journey, and from there down they stopped only at night. 

The Brigade came down when the river was high, in the 
bright June sunshine. After a year of loneliness, of cold, 
of danger, sometimes of hunger, In their northern posts 
among the Indians, the light-hearted French-Canadians 
were very happy. At each post they came In singing, 
dressed gayly in their best. 

Fort Vancouver knew just when to expect the Brigade 

[lOl] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

of Boats. The watchman was on the alert. "The Bri- 
gade! The Brigade!" he would shout as his eye caught 
the first glimpse of the canoes on the river — just a line of 
tiny dark specks. And from white-haired Dr. McLoughlin 
to the little half-Indian children playing about in the fields, 
everyone rushed to the river bank. 

Down the broad blue river swept the canoes, sometimes 
twenty abreast, and In perfect line, led by the single 
canoe of the ofiicer in charge. The Union Jack of Great 
Britain floated from the officer's masthead. It was on a 
scarlet background and at the bottom of it, in white, was 
a half-monogram, |^C. The boatmen were dressed in 
their finest, hats almost covered with feathers or with 
bunches of bright ribbon, and their beaded Indian pouches 
dangling from their gay sashes. Brightly colored hand- 
kerchiefs were knotted about their throats. 

It was a beautiful sight as well as a striking one — the 
broad green plains around the fort, the charming green 
islands in the river, the dark, blackish forests coming 
down to the water's edge. Over them rose the snowy 
peaks of Mount Hood. The river sparkled and gleamed 
In the June sunlight as the gay fleet of canoes came down 
with fluttering flags and plumes and ribbons. The dark- 
skinned, black-eyed boatmen sang together some gay boat- 
ing song, and sang in time to the dip of the paddles. 

Nearer and nearer they came, louder and louder was the 
chorus of song, while the men on shore shouted their 
welcome. Then the canoes, still In perfect order, still out 
in the middle of the blue river, wheeled In perfect line, 

[ 102 ] 



FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN 

and came, side by side, in towards the river bank. Once 
there, with a shout the men sprang to the shore. The 
danger and loneHness of the year was past. For two or 
three weeks there would be no hunger, no danger, no 
loneliness, no work. 

Those voyageurs had a good time lounging about the 
fort during those few weeks. Busy officers sorted over the 
furs, counted them, and had them made into bales. 
Workmen dusted and beat out the new furs, just brought 
in. From the storehouse they took the beads and knives, 
the blankets and guns, the powder and bullets and kettles, 
as well as the rice and flour and pork which were to go 
back to the upper country. But the dark, handsome, wild- 
looking men, dressed still in all their gay finery, played 
while these others worked. 

When the Brigade of Boats went out, everyone was on 
the river bank again. The cannon at the fort fired a 
salute. The men's rifles fired an answering one. All was 
ready. Gay still, in their holiday clothes, the voyageurs 
stepped into the canoes and took their places; their pas- 
sengers took theirs. The officers and the men going home 
to Canada or Scotland or England were all passengers, 
for they went up the river, over the Canadian Rockies, and 
sailed from Hudson's Bay. At a pistol shot every paddle 
touched the water at the same instant — and they were off 
again. Out they swept into the river, singing In time to 
the dip of the paddles, wheeling in mid-stream in perfect 
order — off again for another year of danger and hard 
work. Up the broad, blue river, in full chorus, ribbons 

[103] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

fluttering and plumes waving, until one could see only 
small specks on the blue water, and hear only the faint 
sound of song — such was their going. 

The second exciting time was -later in the summer, when 
the home ship from England came in. On this ship came 
the letters and newspapers from England. Everyone 
waited eagerly for it. 

From the time it left England until the ship reached the 
long line of foaming breakers at the mouth of the bar, 
was eight or nine months. Once over the bar, the ship 
came to anchor in Baker's Bay, and sent a longboat across 
the river to the log cabins still at Astoria. The Com- 
pany's men held this place, but now only for the conven- 
ience of the ocean-going ships. A boat was ready there, 
with Lidian paddlers, and the mail came up the river in 
that way. If the wind was contrary, it would take a ship 
one or two or even three weeks to come from Astoria to 
Fort Vancouver. 

The children were on the alert for the postman who 
came in this canoe. The moment they saw the canoe they 
shouted, "The Packet! The Packet!" 

From the boat sprang the officer with the mail, and up 
to the fort he went. Everyone waited there for the mail. 
Dr. McLoughlin shook hands with him, and with a wave 
of the hand sent him — where? To the kitchen! He 
had been on that ship for months with salt meat and ship's 
hard bread, and the kitchen with all the good things the 
cook had ready for him there was the best place. 

[104] 



FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN 

But the letters ! Every man dropped his work and 
crowded to the office where the white-haired, blue-eyed 
Dr. McLoughlin sorted them over. The doors were full 
of eager men, crowding each other. The windows were 
full of heads, twisted this way and that to make out an 
address. When sorted, the mail was handed out. All 
was silent as each man read his letters. But at dinner 
that night — such a hubbub! Each man was busy telling 
his neighbor all the news in his letter, for many of these 
men came from the same neighborhood in Scotland; their 
families knew each other. 

The dinner table at Fort Vancouver was hardly what 
one would expect in a fur-trading fort in the wilderness. 
It was entirely different from any fort that the Americans 
ever had. 

At the head of the long table sat Dr. McLoughlin; on 
either side of him were his leading officers. The others 
sat in order of rank and importance down the table on 
each side. The meals were good, with venison or beef, 
vegetables of all kinds, and with fruits. The servants 
were all men. The dinner was served in courses, and 
usually the higher officers wore evening dress. These 
officers were nearly all university graduates. The fur- 
trade of the Hudson's Bay Company was a regular busi- 
ness, carefully managed under educated men. It was not 
managed like the American fur trade. 

After dinner the officers and clerks gathered in the 
Bachelors' Hall, as they called their great smoking-room. 
The walls were decorated with elks' heads and antlers. 

[105] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

The chairs were made by the carpenter at the fort. There 
was a hbrary of good books there, and new books were 
sent over from England every year. Indeed, nearly every 
fort, even in the far north, had its little traveling library, 
which was changed every year. 

In this great smoking-room, after dinner, the men 
talked of Europe, and what was happening there. They 
were always a year behind time. They wondered if war 
might have broken out. They talked of books and 
authors, of gardening, and of the fur trade. They talked 
of all kinds of interesting things, while the great fire 
roared in the open fireplace and the room became blue 
with tobacco smoke. Candles were the only lights in 
those days, and when "good-nights" were said each man 
took his candle and the fire was covered. 

There were no white women at the fort. No man 
knew when he might be sent inland to some post, among 
the Indians, and the life of a fur trader was too hard for 
a white woman. The wives of the officers were part 
Indian, but they were quiet, ladylike women, often very 
beautiful, and dressing like white women. They often 
warned their husbands of some Indian plot. 

This is the way Fort Vancouver looked when Captain 
Wilkes, of an American exploring expedition, visited it 
in 1841 : 

Inside the stockaded walls were four acres of ground, 
and within these wooden walls were nearly forty buildifi^gs, 
including a great bake-oven. Outside the walls were the 
kitchen gardens. Beyond were broad fields of wheat, bar- 

[106] 



FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN 

ley, oats, and pease, with large, two-story buildings where 
the wheat was stored. Once nearly all of that had been 
covered with trees. The Hudson's Bay Company had 
worked hard. 

Under patches of trees grazed large herds of cattle and 
flocks of sheep. Pigs grunted around their pens, and tur- 
keys gobbled from the trees or from under them. Wild 
geese were on the river, and elk and deer in the forest. 
There were sawmills for cutting lumber to be sold at the 
Sandwich Islands. There were dairies where butter and 
cheese were made, and shipped to the Russians in Alaska. 
There were large orchards of apples and plums and pears, 
besides other fruit. 

Dr. McLoughlin was always very kind to the Ameri- 
cans, and in later years became a naturalized citizen. 
When the immigrants began to come into the Oregon 
country he did all in his power to aid them. He lent 
them cattle to draw their plows in breaking up the tough 
crust of the new earth. The crust was formed of matted 
roots and grass, and was very difficult to plow. He even 
lent them the plows, besides seed-wheat and other grains, 
clothing to wear, and lumber to build their cabins. He 
prevented the Indians from attacking them. 

One day Dr. McLoughlin stood on the river bank 
anxiously awaiting some of the immigrants who were 
coming down in boats from The Dalles. It was late in 
the autumn. Cold had set in, in the upper country. He 
knew the poor wanderers were nearly starved and almost 
naked. He was so anxious he had come down to the 

[107] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

river bank to watch for them. The Indians were watching 
too. 

As Dr. McLoughlin stood on the river bank, he heard 
an Indian near by say, " It would be good for us to kill 
these white dogs." 

Quick as a flash, the Doctor rushed toward the Indian. 
He knew the remark had been made to test him. He 
upraised his cane as though to strike him. 

"What is that you say?" he thundered. 

The Indian began to shake at the anger of this White- 
Eagle chief. 

"That is what The Dalles Indians said," he answered. 

"The Dalles Indians are dogs!" said Dr. McLoughlin. 

Then he made the Indian understand that white men 
stand by each other, whether they were " King George 
men" (Englishmen) or were "Boston men" (Americans). 

But for the generous kindness of Dr. McLoughlin, 
" King of the Columbia," as some white men called him, 
and the shelter and aid he gave to the Americans, whether 
missionaries like Whitman or immigrants who came to 
settle, there would have been much suffering from starva- 
tion, from exposure, and from Indians. Many of his let- 
ters which have never been published show how kindly he 
felt toward the Americans, and how truly he tried to help 
them. But It is not true, as his own letters show, that 
the Hudson's Bay Company were angry with him for the 
help he gave the Americans, or that he gave up his work 
because of that. 

The greatest help he gave the Americans was in his 

[io8] 



FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN 

control of the Indians, so that the country was settled 
before the Indians began to attack the Americans. Attacks 
came only after the boundary was settled and the Indians 
knew the country belonged to the " Boston men." 



[109] 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE FIRST APPLE IN THE OREGON COUNTRY 

NO captain knew when he started from London to 
Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River whether he 
would be wrecked in rounding the Horn, or be caught in 
some fearful storm in the South Seas; or even whether, 
at the entrance of the Columbia, his ship might not be 
drawn, by the swirl of the current or some adverse wind, 
on the bar. It was a long, dangerous voyage. So, before 
the yearly ship left London, a dinner was often given to 
the captain. 

" Captain," said a lady at a dinner given to Captain 
Simpson, in London, "when you reach that wilderness on 
the Northwest Coast of America, plant these apple seeds." 

And then, half in fun, she gave him the seeds she had 
just taken out of an apple. This was probably about 1825 
or 1826. The captain said he would surely plant them. 
Then he put them in his pocket and forgot all about 
them. 

The next day he started off on that long voyage of 
seven or eight months. He sailed around the Horn, up 
the western side of South America and of North America, 
crossed the terrible bar of the Columbia with its thunder- 
ing white-capped waves, and sailed up to Fort Vancouver. 

[no] 



FIRST APPLE IN THE OREGON COUNTRY 

Then he sat, in his dress suit, at the right hand of Dr. 
McLoughHn, at another dinner; but this time it was in 
" that wilderness on the Northwest Coast of America.'* 

Putting his hand into his pocket for something, the 
captain felt the apple seeds. He took them out and told 
Dr. McLoughlin how they came to be there. At that 
time there were no apples trees at all at Fort Vancouver, 
and those seeds suddenly became very important. They 
were given to Bruce, the gardener, without delay. 

It took four grown men to plant those precious seeds: 
Dr. McLoughlin, Captain Simpson, Mr. Pambrun, and 
Bruce. First they were put in small boxes, in good earth, 
with glass over them. The boxes were put in the store- 
room where no one would find them or touch them. 

The green sprouts, later, were planted in the fort garden 
by Bruce and carefully protected. The white-haired Dr. 
McLoughlin also watched over them. This powerful man, 
who controlled thousands of Indians, and governed a 
country eight hundred miles long, north and south, and 
nearly a thousand miles east and west — this "King of 
the Columbia " bent down with great interest over these 
tiny green apple shoots. He hoped they would bear fruit, 
and they did. 

*' Now come and see. We are going to have some 
apples," he said to Mr. Harvey one day. Harvey himself 
tells this story, and he was afterwards the doctor's son- 
in-law. They went to the tree. One little green apple 
was hanging there. When it was ripe, it was picked and 
cut into many slices, for everyone had to have a bit of it. 

[Ill] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

That first apple was a green one, but the next year there 
were more apples and they were red. And the seeds of 
every apple were saved, planted, and tended, so that they 
became valuable apple trees. 

When the missionaries came, several years after that 
first seed was planted, they found a charming apple orchard 
at Fort Vancouver, with many a tree covered in the spring 
with beautiful, fragrant, pink blossoms, and in the fall 
with red apples. 



[112] 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS 

ZEVE! Live! (Arise! Arise!)." That was the 
i French-Canadian call early one summer morning 
out on the great plains, and it awakened an entire camp. 
It was only four o'clock and the sun was just rising out 
of the prairie grass, but the camp arose. 

They had to arise. For one thing, they had to be on 
the march. For another, no one could sleep through such 
a racket, mules braying and trampling about and men 
shouting to each other. And this happened every morn- 
ing, to every camp crossing the plains. 

In this camp there were two different parties, traveling 
together for safety. One was a missionary party, with 
Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Mr. Spalding and his 
wife, and Mr. Gray, a carpenter, who was with them. 
The other was a fur-trading party of the American Fur 
Company, who were going to the Rocky Mountains to 
trade beads and paints and kettles, guns and powder and 
bullets, and many other things, with the Indians for furs. 

The fur traders were used to this wild way of living, 
but the missionaries were not. They had lived always In 
small villages or in the larger towns. It was a new thing, 
especially for the two ladies, to spend week after week 

[113] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

on the long, rolling, grassy prairies. It was not an easy 
life, even on the prairies. Farther on it was harder 
because they had to cross the bare, brown, treeless plains, 
and then the mountains. 

After the guide called, and while the mules and horses 
made such an uproar, and camp-keepers and muleteers 
shouted at each other, everyone dressed quickly. Then 
came breakfast. 

In the missionary party, Mrs. Whitman cooked it, 
while the men collected their own horses and milked their 
own cows. There was little to cook — coffee and buffalo 
meat. Bread was baked along the road beside an open 
campfire whenever they could get a chance. For table- 
cloth, they used a rubber cloth. Plates and cups were of 
tin. Forks were of iron. They sat on the ground. 

Among the fur traders, things were rougher yet. 

Then the day's journey began. Many a day on the 
prairies, there was nothing but the long rumble of the 
wagon and the thud of the horses' feet. The hot sun 
poured down upon them, but nothing at all happened from 
sunrise to sunset. Sometimes they had adventures. 

One day the caravan of traders and missionaries was 
jogging slowly onward. There were seven wagons, 
heavily loaded; there were four hundred animals, includ- 
ing horses, mules, and cows; there were about seventy-five 
people. 

Suddenly, as they passed a fold in the hills, near Inde- 
pendence Rock, they startled a herd of buffalo feeding 
there. Out came the leaders, mad with fear, followed by 

[IH] 



THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS 

the whole herd. The caravan was strung out nearly two 
miles long, and It was directly in the path of the buffalo 
when they stampeded. Everyone saw the danger. Every 
guard and every man not driving a team turned his horse 
toward the buffalo and dashed straight toward the fore- 
most of the great frightened herd pouring out of the hills. 
Yet on the buffaloes came, headed straight for the caravan. 

If the herd kept right on, they would crash straight 
through the caravan. Mules and wagons would be over- 
turned, drivers and riders and missionaries would be 
crushed under that mad rush. The only way to turn them 
aside was to shoot at them. Every gun was aimed at the 
oncoming buffaloes. Bullets flew among them like hail, 
but still they plunged forward. Horses and mules snorted 
with fright, tried to break their harness, and to escape 
from the control of their drivers. 

Still onward came that herd of black buffaloes! Plung- 
ing and bellowing, with their big shaggy heads down, with 
eyes red, they rushed directly at the caravan. A continual 
shower of bullets flew among them. Just as they reached 
that long, strung-out caravan, the leaders, frightened by 
the hail of bullets, turned to one side. But they were so 
close that the guards who were firing found themselves 
forced back, right among the wagons. 

Yielding to that shower of bullets, which stung even 
their thick, shaggy hides, the black herd turned just in 
time to save the caravan from destruction, and the trav- 
elers from death. The terrible stream of maddened ani- 
mals swept alongside the caravan Into the open plains. 

[115] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

They grunted and groaned as they thundered along, 
making the earth tremble with the tramp of their countless 
hoofs. 

The caravan was saved I 

American fur traders at that time seldom went beyond 
the Rocky Mountains. These missionaries were going a 
thousand miles beyond, into the Oregon country. As it 
was not safe for them to travel alone, soon after they 
left the American fur traders they joined the British, a 
small party from the Hudson's Bay Company. This com- 
pany, you will remember, had its forts all through the 
Oregon country, and at Fort Vancouver ruled Dr. John 
McLoughlin. The officers of this Company were always 
very kind to American missionaries. 

Soon after leaving the Rocky Mountains they had to 
cross a land with no trees, and few streams. The heat 
of the summer sun was terrible. When they stopped 
for luncheon, the missionaries fastened a blanket to the 
tops of four sticks stuck in the ground, or across sage- 
brush, so that they might have a little shelter from the 
sun. 

Their first stopping point, after joining the party of the 
Hudson's Bay Company, was at Fort Hall, about forty 
miles from where Fort Hall City is today. 

The Whitmans and Spaldings reached Fort Hall after 
days of fearful heat. The fort was a small one, but the 
welcome given them was cordial. Trees grew along the 
banks of the little stream, which rippled and chattered 
over its rocky bed. There were bunks to sleep in and 

[ii6] 



THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS 

chairs in which to sit. The trader in charge gave them 
fresh bread and fish, with vegetables and cheese and butter. 
They had been without such food for many weeks. 

The very worst of the journey lay ahead of them, the 
officer told them. That seemed rather hard after the 
long weeks and months, first on the wave-like prairies, 
and then on the flat, treeless plains. But ahead of them 
lay a rocky, sandy country. The rocks were both large 
and small, with sharp edges which cut shoes or moccasins 
like a knife. It was so dreary that no game lived in it. 
An American said afterwards that it was a land where 
"men had songs for supper" — the food had usually 
given out when they reached there, and they could not 
buy or catch or shoot any. 

Through this country the trail was a mere track 
through sagebrush and wormwood as high as the backs 
of the horses. Dr. Whitman wondered about the two 
wagons he had with him. The officer told him, with 
entire honesty, that it would be impossible to take the 
wagons with him. Every officer of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany would have said the same thing. In their private 
letters to each other they said it was impossible to get a 
wagon through from Fort Hall to Oregon. 

But Dr. Whitman thought he would see what he could 
do. Mrs. Spalding was ill, and he felt he had to have a 
wagon for her. He took off the wagon beds and made a 
two-wheeled cart. On this he packed such goods as he 
could, yet then there was no room for either of the ladies. 
There was nothing else to do, so they went on horseback. 

[117] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

So off went the Whitman party to the next fort, Fort 
Boise, Dr. Whitman himself taking care of that cart. 

He had a terrible time with It, In the struggle to get 
it through, on that rocky, rough road, so overgrown with 
tall sagebrush and wormwood. His wife, again and again, 
urged him to let it go. The doctor would come into camp 
hours after the others had r-eached it, and tell them how 
many times it had been overturned. When they reached 
Fort Boise, the doctor did leave it behind him. From 
this fort, a few years later, the old cart was driven 
through to Fort Walla Walla by an old "mountain man" 
with his Indian wife and children, but he had such a time 
with It that he wished many a time he had never under- 
taken to do it. 

Yet the driving of that cart through to Fort Walla 
Walla, hard as it was, proved that it could be done. It 
proved that it was possible to get wagons through from 
"the States" to the Columbia River. And this opened 
the way for the later immigrants who brought with them 
their wives and children, and could not have come without 
wagons. It was six years, however, after the Whitmans 
went to Oregon before American wives and children 
began to go to the Oregon country with the men. 

But while the missionaries were struggling with their cart 
on the road to Fort Boise, and resting there, some Indians 
to the west were making some very Interesting plans. 

The Nez Perces Indians, always a friendly tribe, heard 
that two white women were crossing the plains and the 
mountains. Now these Nez Perces, many years before, 

[ii8] 



THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS 

had heard from other Indians, and especially from Iro- 
quois Indians of eastern Canada, of a Great Power who 
lived up in the sky. He was simply a Mysterious One. 
They knew nothing of a God who is endless love. The 
Indians thought if they could find out about this Great 
Power, so they could talk to him, that things would go 
better. They thought there would be no more sickness in 
their tepees, that hunting would be more successful, that 
the winters would not be so cold, and they would have 
more blankets. They heard that the white people could 
talk directly to this Great Power. Therefore the Nez 
Perces wanted to have white teachers come among them. 
They had even sent to St. Louis, across the plains, asking 
for teachers. 

Now this tribe of Indians heard that missionaries were 
coming and two ladies with them. Part of the tribe re- 
mained near their own grounds, but part went forward to 
welcome the white people. 

Can you imagine an Indian welcome? This is what 
it was: 

When within a day's march of the Spalding camp, the 
Indians — and some fur traders who were with them — 
halted. The women smoothed out their long black hair 
and braided it, tying it with bright ribbons bought from 
traders. Their buckskin dresses were beautifully beaded, 
fringed with tiny hawk's bells and tinkling shells. Their 
moccasins and leggins were bright with beads. The war- 
riors also combed out their long black locks and braided 
them, leaving a scalp lock free as a sign of bravery. They 

[119] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

stuck eagle feathers in it, and sometimes a bright bit of 
ribbon. They put on their beaded buckskin shirts and 
leggins. 

The ponies were gay with blankets of red and blue. 
Some of them were painted, yellow and blue. Their beau- 
tifully beaded saddle blankets were edged with long fringe 
which swept the ground. 

Guns were all newly cleaned. The drummers took their 
tom-toms — the Indian rawhide drums. All was ready. 

When the scouts, looking over a low hill, saw the mis- 
sionary caravan in sight, with the fur traders, the signal 
was given. The gay Indians rushed to their horses. 

Then away they went! Spurring their ponies, riding 
with mad speed, yelling, whooping, shouting, they dashed 
forward with wild motions. War drums crashed; guns 
banged; every warrior whooped like a demon. 

On they dashed, faster and faster, yelling louder and 
louder. Bang! Bang! Bang! went the guns. When they 
had almost reached the missionaries, they suddenly pulled 
up their ponies and stood perfectly still. It was a trick 
for which the ponies had been trained. 

This was the welcome of the Indian reception committee. 

But the missionaries ! Fluttering bits of white at the 
ends of the guns told the traders the story at once. They 
only took care the horses were not stampeded. There 
was no time to tell the missionaries, who thought it was a 
band of hostile Indians coming down upon them. They 
started to drive their cows and horses to a safe place 
among the wagons, caught up their guns, and made ready 

[120] 



THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS 

for defense. But when Dr. Whitman understood it, he 
thought It was great fun and was as delighted as a boy. 

The Indians wanted to see the white women. One of 
the squaws touched their skin softly, to see If the white was 
paint. Then she kissed her new white friends. Mrs. 
Whitman was blue-eyed and golden-haired. Mrs. Spalding 
was slighter, dark-haired, and very gentle. The cows and 
calves came In for many questions; the Indians thought 
they were tame buffalo. 

And what a welcome did the traders give these ladles! 
Well, one of them had not seen a white woman In nine 
years. These white traders lived In the wilderness just 
like Indians. 

Then the whole throng — missionaries, Indians, Ameri- 
can trappers, and British traders — rode on over the 
rough, stony country and through the mountains. The 
British traders and the missionaries went to Fort Walla 
Walla, which was In the Nez Perces country. 

But at Fort Walla Walla the horses of the missionaries 
would not even ride up to the gate ! Turkeys gobbled 
around the fort yard, geese quacked, and hens cackled. 
That was too much for horses which had been for months 
on the plains. 

Every kindness was shown the missionaries at the fort. 
Wooden bunks fastened on the walls, the rough wood bot- 
tom covered with Indian blankets; chairs, rough axe-hewn 
slabs, cut from trees in the Blue Mountains; tables made 
from hewn slabs again — such were the furnishings at the 
fort. But they were offered with a kindness which was 

[121] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

genuine, and it was much better than camping out of doors. 
Fresh salmon, bread, butter, tea, potatoes, melons, and 
vegetables of all kinds were offered to the guests. Indian 
runners had told the fort they were coming, so, when they 
wanted to go farther, boats were ready, with the boatmen, 
to take them down the river to Fort Vancouver. 

It took two or three days to go down the river, riding 
smoothly over the broad blue water in daytime and 
camping at night on the shore or on some island in mid 
stream. 

On the river bank, when they reached Fort Vancouver, 
stood Dr. McLoughlin to welcome them, the same kindly, 
genial "White-Eagle Chief" whom many white men loved. 
The good doctor turned some of the younger clerks out of 
their own rooms so that the missionaries might have them. 
They sat at that long table in the great dining hall at the 
fort, waited upon with men servants, with the dinners 
served in courses. Good dinners they were, with game — 
no roast beef, yet, because cows were too few — and fish, 
with cabbages, peas, onions, beans, radishes, beets, pota- 
toes; with puddings, and with fruits from Bruce's carefully 
tended garden — apples and peaches and prunes. 

Dr. McLoughlin took them out to see that orchard — 
the only one west of the Mississippi River. He was proud 
of it. He took them all over the farm, with hundreds 
of acres of peas, barley, oats, and wheat. In the small 
ponds cattle waded, or leisurely ate the grass in the fields, 
while in the great dairies, both at Fort Vancouver and on 
the island in the river — Multnomah Island — busy women 

[122] 



THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS 

made cheese and butter. When Dr. and Mrs. Whitman 
wandered about the beautiful big farm, swans preened 
their feathers or sailed about in stately way, while ducks 
quacked in the ponds. Bands of horses roamed about, 
feeding on the grass. 

It was just like coming home to the missionaries, with 
all these chickens and geese and ducks, with the horses and 
cows and apple trees. Yet this was still the unknown 
"Northwest Coast of America," and Americans knew very, 
very little about it. 

Dr. McLoughlin did not wish the Americans to go far 
from the fort. A single murder by the Indians would stir 
up the entire country in Indian warfare. It was far too 
dangerous. He invited them to stay at the fort as long 
as they would. At last it was decided that the two ladies 
should stay there for a time, while their husbands and Gray 
the carpenter should build log cabins for their mission 
work among the Nez Perces Indians, near Fort Walla 
Walla. They called it Waiilatpu, meaning the place of 
rye grass. 

The ladies were busy while they waited at the fort. Dr. 
McLoughlin had started a school for the boys around the 
fort, to teach them how to read, how to write, and how 
to farm. Mrs. Whitman helped in the school, and she 
taught these children how to sing. 

The Whitmans were not the very first missionaries In 
the Oregon country. Jason Lee and his nephew Daniel 
Lee had come two years before and had settled in the 
Willamette Valley. But there were no women at that mls- 

[123] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

slon until later, and they came out from New York around 
the Horn by ship. 

Eleven years after the Whitmans came, in 1847, ^^e 
Indians began to be very angry because many settlers were 
coming into their country. Thousands of immigrants were 
crossing the plains every year now, and they had marked 
out that "Great Medicine Road of the Whites," as the 
Indians called the Oregon trail. The year before, the 
treaty had been signed dividing Oregon between Great 
Britain and America. The Indians knew this. They liked 
the British fur traders, who did not build log cabins, did 
not farm, did not cut down trees and fence in the springs, 
did not drive away the wild game so that the red man 
starved. It was the " Boston men," the Americans, who 
did these things. Therefore the Indians hated the Amer- 
icans. 

Now things became worse. With the immigration of 
1847 came much sickness. The trains of tired people 
stopped at the Whitman mission, and some of the sick 
were left there. Sickness spread into the camps of the 
Indians, and because they did not know what to do, many 
died. In the darkness and silence of the night, from 
lonely tepees along little streams, could one hear the death 
cry and the long wail of Indian women mourning for their 
dead. Still the sickness spread. 

The Indians said the "Boston men" were to blame for 
the sickness. They had brought it among the tepees so 
that the white man might have the lands of the red man. 
So angry they became that, after long plotting, they killed 

[124] 



THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS 

Mrs, Whitman and her husband, and several other peo- 
ple who were living with them. All the others were cap- 
tured and made prisoners. 

No one knew what to do. The Americans at the Willa- 
mette were helpless. If they sent an army of men, the 
Indians would kill all the prisoners, or carry them into the 
upper country. If they sent only a few, since the Indians 
were on the war-path, they would not be strong enough to 
rescue the prisoners at Waiilatpu. No one could help 
except the Hudson's Bay Company. 

Without even waiting to see what the Americans would 
do, Peter Skeen Ogden, a trader well known among the 
Indians up the river, and trusted by them, started from 
Fort Vancouver for the mission. He took with him many 
blankets and kettles and paint; took things which the In- 
dians liked. He traveled in such a way as to make the 
Indians think he knew nothing about the massacre. In one 
canoe, with his voyageiirs, he started up the river, stopping 
at the usual camping places, making presents, acting as 
though nothing had happened. They knew, of course. 
They did not know that he did. If Ogden had hurried, 
and the Indians thought he was afraid, he could have done 
nothing. 

When Ogden reached Fort Walla Walla, he called a 
council of the chiefs, and demanded the freedom of the 
prisoners. The chiefs refused. It took days of time and 
many blankets before Ogden could persuade the Indians 
to give up their prisoners. The moment they did, he paid 
over the blankets and other presents, bundled the unhappy 

[125] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

people Into canoes, and started down the river as fast as 
they could go. So the poor prisoners were saved. But 
the Indians said, and the Americans also admitted, that 
no one could have saved these American prisoners except 
the Hudson's Bay Company, because of their power with 
the Indians. And that power was based upon their rule 
of justice and firmness. 

After the prisoners were safe, the Americans sent a 
small army up the river. That is, they sent armed men, 
for they had no trained soldiers. Thus began the Yakima 
war. It lasted only a year, but many colonists were killed 
and the whole country upset by It. In the end the Indians 
had to ask for peace. The five men who had murdered 
the Whitmans were hanged. 

And so ended the mission which had begun eleven years 
before, when Mrs. Whitman and her husband, with the 
Spaldings, had crossed the plains and the mountains to the 
Oregon country. 



[126] 



CHAPTER XV 

THE OREGON TRAIL 

IF a lively mule kicked off the coffee pot while you were 
crossing the Oregon trail, where would you get an- 
other? From the Missouri River to Fort Hall, built in 
1834, there was no place at which you could buy anything. 
Only Indians roamed the rolling prairies, the level plains, 
or the rugged mountains, and little could be traded from 
them except furs. It was quite the other way, indeed, for 
Indians wanted kettles and pots. So great was this need 
that later Fort Laramie was built in the Rocky Moun- 
tains, but although built as a trading post for immigrants, 
its supplies were limited and its prices sky-high. Before 
Fort Hall was built there was no stopping place between 
the Missouri River and Fort Walla Walla. Look at the 
map on the next page and see how long a trail that was, and 
how many opportunities for loss in crossing the rivers and 
creeks and climbing the rugged mountains. 

At first no one went to Oregon, and so there really was 
no "Oregon trail." There was only the trail for the fur 
traders and trappers who went to the Rocky Mountains 
with their trading goods and came back with the packs of 
furs. Immigrants of later years, going to the Columbia 
River, followed that same old fur-trading route, and so it 
came to be called the " Oregon trail." 

[127] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 



At first, only men and boys went on the fur-trade trail, 
with their traps and their trading goods. They used pack 
horses or mules only — no wagons. Meat was supplied 




The Oregon Country, showing the undeterminate northern border, 

the Hudson Bay Trail, and the Oregon Trail. The black 

dotted lines represent the trails. 

by the buffalo and deer on the plains, but each camp car- 
ried its own coffee, sugar, bacon, flour, and perhaps a few 
books. Each camp carried also its own tin plates and cups, 
its own iron forks and spoons, its own frying pans and 
coffee pots. So if that lively mule kicked off his pack in 

[128] 



THE OREGON TRAIL 

what is now eastern Colorado, perhaps, and lost the bread 
pan or the coffee pot, there was trouble Indeed for the 
traders. 

Sometimes these trappers and traders had exciting 
adventures. Captain William Sublette, with a party of 
sixty trappers, was surprised one morning on the Kansas 
prairies by a band of Comanche Indians. He says there 
were a thousand of them. Mounted on their racing Indian 
ponies, painted for war, fully armed with guns, which they 
were waving in the air, they came sweeping down on the 
little band of white men. Sixty whites against hundreds 
of Indians ! 

As these whooping Indians came nearer, Captain Sub- 
lette told his men to make ready to fire, but not to shoot 
until he did. The men raised their guns and stood waiting. 
On swept the ponies, bringing the Indians nearer and 
nearer, still whooping and yelling and waving their guns, 
until they were within three hundred feet of the white men. 
Sublette gave a quick glance at his own men. They were 
ready. He raised his gun, aimed It at a leading chief, 
and prepared to fire. Instantly that chief sprang off his 
pony and laid his gun on the ground. Sublette understood. 
He at once laid down his own gun, but his men kept theirs 
aimed, ready to shoot. The chief began to walk toward 
Sublette. Sublette at once advanced toward him. 

That meant a "peace talk," but both Indians and whites 
watched closely to see that there was no treachery. To 
Sublette's surprise, this chief said that he and his warriors 
would go away if the white men would give them a 

[129] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

present. That was the easiest way out of a bad scrape, 
Sublette thought, and he at once agreed. The presents 
were given and the Indians rode away. 

Sublette never knew whether they admired his men for 
their coolness, or whether they were a little afraid to 
attack those sixty grim-looking, determined white trappers. 
At any rate, it was cheaper for the Indians not to fight, 
and much safer for the white men. 

The very first women to cross the plains, you will 
remember, were Mrs. Spalding and Mrs. Whitman in 
1836. After that went a few other women, also mission- 
aries. Later a few Indian women, with their American 
trapper-husbands, such as the well-known Jo Meek, and 
their children, went from the Rocky Mountains into the 
Oregon country. The mountain fur trade was "done for," 
they said; nearly all the fur-bearing animals were killed 
off, especially the beaver. It was 1841 and 1842 before 
white women settlers began to cross the Oregon trail to 
the Oregon country. 

When it was found that women could go to Oregon, 
whole families began to go, including little children and 
even the babies. They traveled in big, canvas-covered 
wagons called prairie schooners. The lines of white can- 
vas wagon-tops crossing the rolling green prairies made a 
pretty picture, much like the white sails of ships on the 
rolling green waves of the ocean. 

Inside each wagon was packed all the furniture : chairs, 
feather beds, bureaus, trunks, bundles of bedding and 
clothing, and perhaps even a stove. The mother, with the 

[130] 



THE OREGON TRAIL 

very little children, rode inside or up on the seat. The 
larger children raced with each other, picked wild flowers, 
and played with their dogs, for the family dogs went too. 
The fathers walked along the dusty trail, swinging the 
black ox-hide goad, driving the slow, clumsy oxen as they 
dragged the heavy wagons over that long, long trail. 

Creak! Creak! Creak! Over the grassy waves of the 
prairies, and over the flatness of the bare, treeless plains, 
sometimes far from water, sometimes by the side of the 
muddy waters of the Platte, with its shallow banks — on 
and on rolled the wagons. From Westport, now a part of 
Kansas City, the Immigrants passed up the Platte River 
into that land where no trees were — a country where a 
man could "hide behind nothing but his own shadow." 

Indians sometimes attacked the immigrants, but only 
to drive off the horses and steal what they could. These 
were usually called "friendly" Indians! In a real fight, 
hostile Indians circled round and round the caravan on 
their trained ponies. They shot from under the horse's 
neck, each man lying so low on his pony's back that he 
seemed to be a part of the little animal. Their yelling 
and whooping frightened not only the travelers but the 
horses and mules. Snorting with fear, the animals would 
break loose. Then the Indians could easily drive them off. 
Sometimes In such fights men and women were killed, and 
the train of wagons had to stop long enough to bury 
the dead. 

At noon the travelers stopped only long enough for a 
quick luncheon. The oxen and horses were not unyoked. 

[131] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

At night, the wagons at sunset formed a great circle. 
To defeat Indian attacks the whiffletree of each wagon 
was fastened with a strong chain to the back wheel of the 
wagon in front. Inside the circle were the horses, mules, 
and oxen. It would be hard for the Indians to break 
through that circle of chains and wagons. 

Supper was cooked by the mothers at the little fires 
which glimmered all around the circle, on the ground. 
The great heavy iron frying pans, with their long iron 
handles — so heavy that one could lift them only with an 
effort — were taken out of the wagons. Bacon was fried; 
and perhaps the coarse flour and water, with salt, was 
mixed and fried In the bacon grease also, for bread. 
There was not a separate pot and pan for everything. 
In the museum of the Oregon Historical Association, at 
Portland, Is a wooden trough which was used, on one long 
journey across the plains, as a bathtub for the baby; as a 
wash basin; as a chopping bowl; it was used for mixing 
bread-dough; and sometimes food was packed away in It. 

After supper everyone was ready for play or for bed. 
There was nearly always a fiddler in the larger trains, and 
sometimes the older boys and girls, and young men and 
women, would dance on the grass. But the smaller chil- 
dren were glad enough to go to sleep. The older boys 
slept, as did the men, on the ground under the wagon. 
The mothers and the girls, with the wee little boys, slept 
in the wagon bed. The night air was cool and sweet. If 
boys or girls were awake In the night, they could look up 
at the stars shining In the quiet sky above them; and in 

[132] 



THE OREGON TRAIL 

the darkness and silence they could hear the howling of 
wolves or the jerky bark of coyotes. 

Storms came sometimes — it was not always pleasant 
weather. The rains poured down upon the canvas, leaking 
through wherever a child's hand touched it as the wagons 
jolted along, even as a canvas roof leaks now in the rain 
if one touches it. Sometimes high winds blew over tents, 
or even wagons, ripping the covering loose, and the immi- 
grants would be drenched to the skin — their bedding and 
their blankets wet, their sugar all melted, and the flour 
spoiled. 

There were plenty of hardships. The howling of wolves 
at night frightened the horses, and often they broke loose. 
Wagons overturned in fording the rivers, or even in cross- 
ing the creeks if the banks were steep. 

Another danger came from prairie fires. When trav- 
elers saw at dawn the red glow of fire, at first mistaken 
for the sunrise, or when they saw the dark clouds of smoke 
far off toward the horizon on a clear day, they knew their 
danger. A prairie fire was sweeping toward them. At 
once they started a "back-fire." That is, they set fire to 
the grass close to them, stamping it out on one side so that 
it would not burn into their wagon train, and fanning it 
so that it would sweep toward the oncoming flames. Then, 
on this burned stretch, they drove their wagons and loose 
cattle. On came the prairie fire, from in front of them 
or from behind them, leaping and roaring. Flames sprang 
high and black smoke rolled above those red tongues in the 
grass. But when it reached the back-fire, it leaped high, 

[133] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

fell, and died out. On the black earth left by the back- 
fire there was nothing more to burn, so the fire would 
sweep by on either side of the travelers, yet leave them 
safe. 

If the fire burned the stretch ahead of them, the ani- 
mals almost starved. There was no grass left to eat, no 
food at all for oxen and horses. And there might be 
no food for the travelers either, for the fires drove 
away the buffalo, the deer, and even rabbits and smaller 
animals. 

An artist named Catlin was traveling over the prairies 
in early days, with two or three friends and an Indian 
guide. They wanted to follow a trail to a certain hill, 
lying blue in the distance. Since the day was fine, they 
set off in high spirits. The prairie grass, however, was 
very dry and very high. It was so high that the men had 
to stand in their stirrups to see well over it, and it was 
filled with the wild-pea vine, in which the horses were 
likely to entangle their feet. 

After they had started, Red Thunder, the guide, got off 
his horse and laid himself flat on the ground, with his 
face in the dirt. The white men laughed at him a little, 
saying that he was "making medicine." But when he 
arose Red Thunder said, " Over this plain dwells always 
the Spirit of Fire. He rides in the cloud. The Fire-bow 
Is In his hand." 

Red Thunder said that from the " smell of the wind " 
he was afraid that the Fire Spirit was awake. But the 
white men could not smell smoke; there was no sign of 

[134] 



THE OREGON TRAIL 

either fire or smoke anywhere on that wide-sweeping plain, 
lying so green and beautiful in the glorious sunshine. 

So Red Thunder led the way, as they went on, and they 
traveled until noonday. While the others were eating their 
luncheon. Red Thunder lay down again on the ground. 
He seemed to be listening. Then he arose and his black 
eyes looked closely all around the horizon. Suddenly he 
cried, "White man! See that small cloud! The Fire Spirit 
is awake!" 

In a second all had jumped upon their ponies. Then 
away over the trail they raced toward the blue hill which 
still seemed so very far away. Soon the horses could 
smell the smoke of the distant fire, and faster and fasten 
they sped. The wind was blowing hard now, and the 
fire could be seen. Then they could hear it — the terrible 
roaring, like a great waterfall. Past them fled the wild 
animals of the prairies, fleeing like themselves from 
the terrible Fire Spirit. The white men dared not look 
behind them. The heavens werq black and the smoke 
suffocating. 

At last Red Thunder reached the bluff toward which 
they had been racing. He gave a yell as his pony strug- 
gled up — up on the bare earth, where there was no 
grass to burn. The other horses, too, with a last exhausted 
effort, sprang up the hill. As Catlin looked down he saw, 
only a few feet below him, a sea of living fire. There was 
a fearful roar and the red flames swept past; then clouds 
of dark, acrid smoke rose from the plain. That, too, 
passed on. Instead of the rolling green of the beautiful 

[135] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

prairie, there lay below them only a smoking, black, deso- 
late plain. And the glorious sunshine, the blue sky, and 
the soft white fleecy clouds above made it only the more 
dreary. 

A great many immigrants did not see a prairie fire. But 
through the many months of travel, as the slow oxen 
plodded on, the sun was hot, the trail dusty, horses and 
oxen wore out and had to be left behind to the chance of 
starvation or wolves. Men, women, and children died 
from sickness and exhaustion. All along the Oregon trail 
were graves. You could have followed that broad, wind- 
ing road over the prairies and plains by the whitened bones 
of the animals which had died by the side of it, and by the 
many wooden crosses which marked the grave of some 
human being. The Indians called that road, worn bare of 
grass by the thousands of wagons which went over it 
through the years, the "Great Medicine Road of the 
Whites." They were used only to the narrow trails of 
their own people, and that wide road, worn so white and so 
bare, was a great wonder to them. 

As the immigrants neared the mountains, they threw 
away everything they could to lighten the load as the 
weary oxen pulled it up the steep, rough mountain road. 
They even shortened the wagon beds, to reduce the weight. 
Necessary articles were thrown out: bureaus, with clothing 
in them; trunks, filled with clothing; wagons were aban- 
doned. At the campfires the weary people forgot their 
frying pans and coffee pots and many other things. 

The smaller articles were picked up by the Indians, for 

[136] 



THE OREGON TRAIL 

anything which had belonged to the white men was "big 
medicine." They sometimes took these things to the priests 
who were living here and there among them, to ask the 
use of them. One Indian bored a hole in a broken teacup 
and put it around his neck. It was his "medicine" — a 
Mysterious Something which would give him power. 

Bump! Bump! Bump! So, after they had left the 
plains, the heavy wagons bumped through the mountains 
in what is now Wyoming and Idaho. 

When Fort Hall was reached some of the wagons had 
to be left behind. Ahead of them lay that " hungry land," 
where no game lived and nothing grew, — that land 
where "men had songs for supper," and through this land 
it was wise to take as few things as possible. For four 
hundred miles after leaving Fort Hall the trail was rough 
and rocky, high with sagebrush and wormwood. Wheels 
would come off and axles break. So, as far as possible, 
everything was packed on the backs of mules and horses. 
Old, worn-out horses and oxen were left there, after being 
traded for fresh animals. The fort people fed the tired 
beasts, rested them, and later on sold them again, to other 
immigrants. 

There were lively times at Fort Hall in those days when 
an immigrant train was about to start off with the new 
pack animals. Many of them were not used to carrying 
packs. Oxen would bellow and mules bray and kick, 
while the air was full of flying pots and pans and 
kettles. 

[137] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Even as Fort Hall had helped the Whitmans when they 
passed through it in 1836, so the officers helped the immi- 
grants of later years. But it was not an easy task. The 
fort belonged to a British company — the Hudson's Bay 
Company. So when the officers told the immigrants of the 
hardships ahead, and advised them to go to California, 
which was really an easier route, the Americans thought 
it was because the British were trying to keep the country. 
This was not true. The officers wrote back to London 
just exactly the same reports that they made to the Ameri- 
cans. They actually thought it wild in the Americans to 
try to get through with their wagons and children. Be- 
sides, so many Americans came in later years that there 
were not supplies enough at the fort to provide for all of 
them. The Americans grumbled about that. But if the 
British had not been kindly they would not have helped 
them at all. 

After the travelers left the fort, there was no game, 
little water, rough roads, hot sun, dust, cut-rocks, sage- 
brush, broken wagons, worn-out people — on and on over 
the Blue Mountains, with their steep sides, and through the 
Grande Ronde, to Fort Walla Walla. But there were also 
Indians, and the fort warned the travelers against them. 

Aftej: one party had passed Fort Hall and was travel- 
ing along the Snake River, a band of Indians, black heads 
bobbing about in the water, swam across to their side. 
They ran on foot toward them, shouting, " Stop ! Stop 1 " 
These immigrants had been warned by the British at the 
fort. Knowing they were thieves, they drove on, and 

[138] 



THE OREGON TRAII^ 

drove rapidly. Then the Indians dodged in and out of the 
tall sagebrush, as high as the horses' backs, and began to 
shoot. The frightened women and children huddled down 
in the boxes of the wagons, while the men whipped up the 
horses and mules. Seeing that, the Indians ran along the 
river bank, under a bluff, to stop the wagons at the foot 
of a hill. The drivers dashed on. Such a ride as that 
was! Down the long hill they plunged, without brakes, 
the wagons bouncing from this side to that, striking against 
small stones and almost throwing the children out. Down 
that hill they tore and up the next one, expecting every 
moment that the Indians would appear, shoot again, or 
in some way stop them. 

That night, as they drove rapidly on, they caught up 
with another party which had been just ahead of them, so 
the two groups camped together. They built fires for 
cooking and the mothers began to get supper. The men 
unharnessed the horses and mules and fed them as best 
they could. Then they smoked around the campfires, keep- 
ing the children in full view. They expected every mo- 
ment, as they sat there in the light of the fire, to be shot 
at from the darkness around them. The next morning 
they did find Indian footprints in the sand near their camp. 
They had been followed, sure enough. But probably the 
Indians were afraid to attack the two parties together. 

When they came over the Blue Mountains and into the 
Grande Ronde — the Great Circle, as the French-Cana- 
dians had called it, because it was a large and round valley 
— travelers had a hard time with their wagons. The 

[139] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

mountain sides were so steep they had to tie a rope to 
the hind wheels of each wagon in going down. This rope 
they twisted around a tree, so that as it was paid out the 
heavy wagon moved slowly and could not so easily upset. 
Ropes used in this way cut a screw-like curve in the trees, 
and these may be seen even to this day. Even the pack 
horses had a hard time on the steep trails, setting their 
feet close together sometimes and sliding down. Every 
now and then someone had to stop to mend a broken axle 
or a broken harness. So the immigrants crawled up the 
steep mountain sides and almost crashed down them, ford- 
ing rivers even where the current was quite swift and the 
water deep, until they were safely past the Grande 
Ronde. 

From there it was sand and sagebrush again until they 
reached Fort Walla Walla. Or, perhaps, if they felt hos- 
tile to the British traders there, they would go to the 
Whitman mission and buy vegetables and melons and flour, 
for Dr. Whitman's mission farmed much land and there 
were supplies which he sold to the travelers. Indians 
brought fish to them also — large salmon, taken fresh from 
the water. One woman took off the big kitchen apron she 
wore and gave it in payment to an Indian for a large 
salmon. That was much better than money, in Indian 
eyes. 

From Fort Walla Walla there were two ways of going 
down the river to Fort Vancouver. One was by water, if 
there were boats; the other was over a rough mountain 
trail, through bands of robber Indians, along the banks 

[140] 



THE OREGON TRAIL 

of the Columbia. Horses and cattle were always driven 
by the trail. In later years a road called Barlow's Road 
was cut through the forests south of Mount Hood. Then 
instead of going to Fort Vancouver first, the cattle could 
be driven directly to the Willamette Valley, where, in early 
years, all the settlers were. 

For many years, however, the women and children went 
down the river in the boats of the Hudson's Bay Company, 
which were sent up to The Dalles to meet them. Other 
boats were used, or perhaps the trail, to The Dalles. 

These boats were old, and called bateaux. They were 
built for the fur trade and not for passengers. They had 
no decks at all. They were enormous rowboats, sometimes 
forty feet long. Yet they were all that could be sent, and 
all that could be spared. There were no other boats in 
the country except the Indian canoes. 

Little children were tied to the masts so they would not 
fall overboard. Tired men and women sat down upon 
coils of rope, rolls of bedding, and bundles and packages 
of all kinds and shapes. They even slept upon them, 
curled up as best they could. 

So the travelers came down the Columbia River. Some- 
times it was under a blue sky by day, with the river dancing 
and sparkling in the sunshine. Sometimes it was on a 
gray day, with a broad stretch of gray river all around 
them and a chill wind blowing. Sometimes, indeed, it was 
late in the fall, and snow was falling, and the days and 
nights were cold, and there was no food. Very few immi- 
grants had much clothing left after that six months of 

[141] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

rough life across the plains, and they were sometimes 
chilled and half-frozen. 

They came down the river to Fort Vancouver where Dr. 
McLoughlin gave them a welcome. " I could not have 
done more for them if they had been my own brothers 
and sisters," he wrote in later years. He gave them food 
and clothing, waiting years for payment; he let them have 
cattle for plowing and seed grain; axes to cut down trees 
that they might build their log cabins. He trusted men to 
repay him when they could raise their crops, after their 
cabins were built and their families taken care of. He gave 
work to many men, buying the shingles which they split, 
buying the grain which they raised. He did all in his 
power to help them. Some of the Americans — many of 
them — did repay him. Others hated him because he was 
British, and let their debts go unpaid. 

So this is how the early settlers came into the Old Ore- 
gon country. They settled first in the Willamette Valley. 
Later they came into what is now Washington, and built 
their log cabins around Puget Sound. 



[142] 



CHAPTER XVI 

WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? 

WHEN white people go into a country occupied only 
by Indians or savages, they often claim possession 
of it. But if many white people go into the same coun- 
try, which of them has the best right to it? There are 
five points on which a nation can claim such ownership: 
(i) discovery, (3) settlement, 

(2) exploration, (4) treaty, 

(5) contiguity. 
"Contiguity" here means that the lands of a savage 
people lie next to, or adjoin, the lands of a civilized 
people. 

Who owned the Oregon country? No one really owned 
it; but at first five nations claimed it. 

Spain claimed Oregon because she had first discovered 
the coast of the Pacific, from Mexico to Alaska. Yet she 
did nothing else; she failed even to publish reports of her 
discoveries. 

Great Britain claimed it on the first three points. Only 
a year or two after Spain had sent a ship up the coast, 
Captain Cook in 1778 had sailed along that coast, watch- 
ing It carefully, and trading. In some places he heard 
reports of the Spanish. Great Britain, even where she 

[143] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

did not first discover, did explore. All journals and reports 
of Cook's voyages were immediately published in London. 
British fur traders, in 1785, began regular trading at 
Nootka Sound and northward. Great Britain explored 
Puget Sound in 1792. The only settlements made on the 
coast were temporary fur posts, like Captain Meares's, 
but they also were British. 

Great Britain, by land, had even better claims. In 
1793, Alexander McKenzie, a Canadian fur trader, crossed 
the Rocky Mountains, paddled up the Peace River to its 
source, then down the head waters of the Frazer River. 
Before he reached the mouth of that river, which he 
thought was the Columbia, his supplies gave out and his 
men were almost starving. He left the river and went 
straight overland to the Pacific Ocean, near the mouth of 
the Bella Coola River. Here the Indians told him of 
white men, like himself, who came In floating houses to 
buy their furs. The mouth of the Frazer River was dis- 
covered by the British in 1824. The British and Canadian 
fur traders planted little trading posts all over the Cana- 
dian Rockies, along the head waters of the Columbia, and 
even where the city of Spokane now is. In all this, they 
were ahead of the Americans. So, by land, through 
discovery, exploration, and settlement. Great Britain had 
a good right to the northern section of the Oregon 
country. 

America claimed Oregon because the daring Captain 
Gray, In 1792, first crossed the bar of the Columbia and 
proved that the "bay" was the mouth of a river. Thir- 

[144] 



WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? 

teen years later, Lewis and Clark discovered the lower 
Columbia from the other direction, from the land side, 
after they had crossed the mountains from the head waters 
of the Missouri River. The first fur trading post on the 
lower Columbia was American. This was Fort Astoria, 
founded in 1811. Thus, in the southern end of the 
great Oregon country, America had claims also by dis- 
covery, by exploration, and by settlement. 

France claimed it on the ground of contiguity; that is, 
because Oregon lay next to the old-time Louisiana. 

Russia claimed it because she had discovered Alaska and 
the northern coasts of the Pacific. But Russia had not 
the slightest right to it. She admitted this in 1824. 

Finally many of these claims faded out. France sold 
Louisiana to the United States; so that the United States 
claimed Oregon by contiguity. 

Spain sold the Floridas to America in 18 19, and at that 
time sold all her rights to Oregon to America. 

So Russia, Spain, and France were out of the race. Only 
Great Britain and America remained — but both claimed 
Oregon. 

Oregon at that time included all the country which today 
we call British Columbia, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, 
and northwestern Montana. North and south it was 
about eight hundred miles. East and west it was nearly a 
thousand miles along the southern border. Along the 
northern border it was narrower, because the Rocky 
Mountains trend toward the sea. 

Nobody knew much about Oregon in those days. The 

[145] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

geographies did not describe it, because no one could put it 
in the geographies. 

Great Britain said Oregon belonged to her. She thought 
of Cook, Vancouver, Meares, McKenzie, and others, all 
of whom had explored in the upper two-thirds of the coun- 
try. The United States said Oregon belonged to her, 
and she thought of Captain Gray, of Lewis and Clark, 
and of the fur post at Astoria, all in the south. 

But England didn't know anything about Gray's dis- 
covery of the Columbia. He was a private fur trader, 
and his log book belonged to himself. He reported the 
river to his owners, but the United States Government only 
heard of it by informal report, or by chance. Great Brit- 
ain had published the exploration of her men; the United 
States had not published the exploration of hers, except 
that of Lewis and Clark, because they were traders. 

So it is easy to understand the confusion. 

In the story of Fort Astoria, it is told that the Ameri- 
cans sold the fort because they feared a British warship 
would come and capture it. One was on the way, and 
did enter the Columbia after the fort was sold. But the 
fort was not captured. 

After the war, America claimed the return of Fort 
Astoria, saying it was captured. Great Britain objected, 
and rightly. But still, little was known about the country; 
it was unsettled, and finally, to save hard feeling, Great 
Britain returned the fur post. But only the fur post; she 
said she did not return Oregon, or any part of it, because 
Oregon belonged to Great Britain. 

[146] 



WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? 

But that same year, because there was this misunder- 
standing, when Great Britain and America made a com- 
mercial treaty (1818), they put in a paragraph saying 
that they did not know to which country Oregon really 
belonged; but since both countries claimed it, until owner- 
ship was settled the people of both countries might go 
there. This was called a "joint-occupancy" treaty. It 
meant that the country would be occupied jointly, or to- 
gether, by both British and Americans who might want to 
go there for fur trade, for farming, for fishing, or any 
other purpose. 

A few Americans, later on, did go there. They went 
for the fur trade. But the British companies, first the 
North West Company, of Montreal, and then the Hudson's 
Bay Company, had been there for years. The Hudson's 
Bay Company, which had united with the old Montreal 
Company, had forts along the Columbia, and through 
what is now British Columbia, and along the coast. They 
had several ships which sailed up and down the coast, trad- 
ing furs. This English company had plenty of money. It 
had hundreds of trained men In Its employ, and it under- 
stood the fur trade business perfectly. It also understood 
how to manage the Indians and keep them friendly. Their 
tact In managing the Indians was wonderful. 

The English used tact where the Americans used guns, 
and the tact won in the end. The Americans, again and 
again, working as independent trappers and traders, were 
murdered by the Indians, where the English came and 
went in reasonable safety. The Indians did attack the 

[147] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

English too, at first, but the English won by their firmness 
and justice and their wonderful organization. The Eng- 
lish pulled together, because there was only one company. 
The Americans fought each other. 

For this reason, and for no other, the American fur 
traders who went into Oregon could not succeed against 
the British. One such was Nathaniel Wyeth. He planned 
to send a ship to the Columbia with trading goods, and 
return it to Boston filled with salted salmon. He himself, 
with his comrades, went overland. 

They were all " tenderfeet," and they knew nothing 
about fur trading or salmon fishing or Indians. They had 
very little capital, and that was borrowed. So when 
Wyeth's companions deserted him and went back from the 
great plains, or the mountains; or deserted him in Oregon 
and went to farming; when his first ship sank in the ocean, 
and the Indians would not hunt furs for him; when every- 
thing went wrong — why, one can only blame Wyeth's 
badly laid plans and not the British. The second time he 
tried was In 1834. His ship reached the Columbia safely, 
and the Hudson's Bay Company did not interfere with 
him. But the Indians knew and trusted the British at the 
fort, and at the fort they could sell their furs for just 
the very things they were used to buying in that way. At 
the fort were their friends, and men who could talk their 
language. Instead of making motions. So the Indians did 
not trade with Wyeth, the American. And even the fish 
conspired against him. The run was poor that year — only 
about half the usual run — and the Indians who were not 

[148] 



WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? 

too lazy to fish sold their fish to Fort Vancouver; others 
were busy fishing for themselves. Wyeth could secure only 
half a shipload of fish, and since he did not know how 
to cure them properly, some of those were spoiled. 

It has always been thought that the British killed the 
American's trade; but even private correspondence among 
the officers shows this was not so. They saw he knew 
nothing of the business and let him "hang himself," as 
the saying goes. Everything was against him, but chiefly 
the fact that he was undertaking a business of which he 
knew nothing. 

With Wyeth, on his last journey, were Jason Lee and 
his nephew, Daniel Lee, with other missionaries, who went 
Into the Willamette Valley to teach the Indians there. But 
a great sickness a few years before had killed off the 
Indians so that few were living, and those did not want to 
learn anything. But Lee and his friends wrote to Ameri- 
cans in "the States" of the beautiful country of the 
Willamette. 

The Willamette Valley was very fertile, with charming 
little prairies here and there, separated by short stretches 
of woodland. The river, full of fish, was at their doors; 
there was game In the forest; the climate was mild; cattle 
could live out of doors all winter. Yet, except the mis- 
sionaries, there were no settlers but a few old servants of 
the Hudson's Bay Company, who had wanted to stay In 
that milder climate after their years of hard work for the 
company, instead of going back to Canada. The laws of 
Great Britain compelled the Hudson's Bay Company to 

[149] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

return all servants whose contracts had expired to their 
homes in Canada or England. But these men were old, 
and they loved the Oregon country. They wanted to stay 
there and farm. If they went back as strangers, into the 
severe climate of Canada, it would perhaps kill them. So 
Dr. McLoughlin allowed them to farm there, with their 
promise that they would obey the usual company rules. 
If they made trouble, he would be obliged to send them 
to Canada. The first settler in the Willamette Valley was 
a French-Canadian, named Etienne Lucier, in 1829. 

The Americans thought these French-Canadians were 
settling the Willamette Valley in order to make it British, 
and hold it for Great Britain. But how could they hold a 
country which the British Government did not claim? In 
1822, if not before, the ofiicers of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany were notified by the British Government that they 
would make no claim to the country south of the Columbia, 
and to put their forts on the north side of the river. This 
was done at Fort Vancouver, and also at other points 
where the land would allow of a little farming. If the soil 
on the south side of the river was better, as at Fort Col- 
ville, they put the fort there, so as to have a garden; not 
so as to claim the country. 

The Americans did not know this at all, and did not 
understand the real condition of things. 

Other Americans began to come in, from 1830 or 1831. 
Some came by ship, by way of the Sandwich Islands; 
some were deserters from whaling ships; some were fur 
traders from the Rocky Mountains, — Americans, called 

[150] 




The Willamette Valley 




From an old [^rint 

Mt. Hood from The Dalles of the Columbl\ 



WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY^'? 

"mountain men." Fur trading was poor, and In Oregon 
the climate was mild and they could get a farm for the 
taking. Besides, Fort Vancouver was there, to sell seeds 
and ploughs and clothing. They were safe from the In- 
dians, because Dr. McLoughlln and the other officers of 
the Hudson's Bay Company held the Indians In check. 

The Americans were anxious and resentful because 
Great Britain claimed "Oregon." They said "Oregon" 
belonged to America. In 1841, when the United States 
Government sent Captain Wilkes there to explore, the 
captain went down Into the Willamette Valley where the 
Americans were. They at once asked his advice about 
forming an American government. He reminded them 
that they lived under a "joint-occupancy" treaty, and that 
the British had as much right there as they had. The 
question must be settled by the two governments. He told 
them also that so large a number of missionaries ought to 
be able to keep order In so small a settlement. Still, they 
wanted American government, and used every argument 
they could think of. 

These missionaries wrote to their friends that although 
Oregon belonged to the United States, yet they were under 
British law. Now the French-Canadians were under British 
law; they were British subjects, and they were allowed to 
go Into the Willamette Valley Instead of being sent back 
to Canada under the condition that they would be peace- 
able and obey British laws. But nobody ever tried to make 
the Americans obey British laws; and there was not much 
difference in the laws of the two countries anyway. 

[151] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

More people came in — more deserters from whalers, 
more "mountain men." There came also law-breakers, 
escaping from justice in "the States;" men who were in 
debt and wanted to get a new start and pay up; men who 
lived in slave states and were afraid of a negro rebellion; 
adventurers from the Sandwich Islands; and also the best 
kind of people, who crossed the plains because they were 
looking for new homes. 

But these Americans "jumped" each other's claims. 
They quarreled with the Indians. They sometimes stole 
each other's horses. People cannot live in a country with- 
out laws: something had to be done. There would have 
been serious trouble, except that the better class of Ameri- 
cans and the Hudson's Bay Company, working together 
as well as they could, had a very strong and a very good 
influence for law and order. 

Yet everyone saw that laws were needed. 

In all pioneer countries, where wolves are many, sheep 
and calves are killed by them in large numbers. The loss 
of these sheep and calves was very serious to a people 
so far from civilization, and with all the expenses and diffi- 
culties of a new country. The colonists held meetings to 
discuss the payment of a reward, or bounty, to everyone 
who killed a wolf. While they talked about their cattle, 
they said also, "We are taking good care of our sheep and 
cattle, but are we taking as good care of our families when 
we live in a land without laws?" These meetings were 
called "Wolf meetings," but they talked about laws for 
themselves more than they did about wolves. 

[152] 



WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? 

Just at this time, a settler named Ewing Young died, 
leaving a farm well stocked, and other property. He had 
no relative in the colony. Yet that property ought to go 
to his nearest relative. But there was no one to take 
charge of it, to see that the cattle were fed and taken care 
of; to look after the farm until his relatives in the east 
could be notified. No one had the right to do this because 
there was no law and no government. 

Shortly after this a meeting was held in the Willamette 
Valley, in the open air, to discuss the necessity of organiz- 
ing a government for the colonists. It was taken for 
granted that it would be an American government. After 
speeches had been made, a settler called out for everyone 
who favored the organization of American government to 
step across a certain line. There were a hundred and two 
men there, including many of the French-Canadians. Of 
these men, fifty-two stepped across the line, thus voting 
for the organization of American government; fifty, most 
of them being French-Canadians, who were satisfied with 
the rule of their old company, did not. 

This step to form a provisional government did not 
" save Oregon to the United States," as has been so often 
said — because all the government formed was in the 
Willamette Valley and Great Britain had not for over 
twenty years laid any claim to that country. It was a 
very wise thing to do, however, and it made things easier 
for all the new settlers, for the Hudson's Bay Company, 
and for the establishing of a regular government several 
years later. 

[153] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

One of the men who hved at that time — a man who 
died only a few years ago — was the last man to step 
over the line. You can see if he had not, that there would 
have been fifty-one on each side. That would have been 
a "tie," or a "draw," as it is called. This man was 
Francois Matthieu. When he died, the newspapers said 
that Matthieu had " saved Oregon to the United States." 
Now you cannot save a man from drowning if he is on dry 
land and doesn't need saving. A man cannot be saved 
from being run over by an automobile if there isn't one 
within a thousand miles of him. Neither could a maij 
"save Oregon" when the section in which he lived, and 
where the government was formed, was acknowledged by 
Great Britain to be American. 

It is also said of Dr. Whitman, the missionary, that he 
" saved Oregon " when he crossed the continent in winter, 
in a wild, daring ride, to the Atlantic coast. No one ever 
took the trouble to go to Great Britain and find out just 
the truth of this; or, if someone did, they did not tell of 
the state papers found there. 

This is the real truth of the " Whitman-saved-Oregon " 
story. Dr. Whitman was a real American, earnest, enthu- 
siastic, and he wanted the beautiful Oregon country to be 
American, and he said the Americans had the best claim to 
it. They did have the better claim to the south; Great 
Britain had the better claim to the north. Yet all the 
country was called Oregon. 

The Indians had been unruly in eastern Washington, 
where the Whitman mission was; and the missionaries had 

[154] 



WHO OWNED THE ''OREGON COUNTRY"? 

themselves been quarreling a little. The Board in the east 
ordered the mission closed. Now Dr. Whitman thought 
if he could only keep his mission, he could make Christians 
of those Indians. Besides, the mission was a great help 
to the immigrants. Dr. Whitman thought Oregon be- 
longed to America, and did not know that Great Britain 
claimed only part of it. So he rode east one winter, 
through terrible storms — rode clear across the mountains 
and plains to St. Louis to save his mission. It was a 
daring thing to do. Then he went on to Washington. 

But Whitman talked Oregon to everyone he met. He 
was intensely interested in having the country American. 
He talked to the Secretary of State at Washington, Dan- 
iel Webster, so it is said. Because he is said to have done 
this, many people think he " saved Oregon," because they 
say Webster was going to trade off Oregon for fishing 
rights around Nova Scotia, on the Atlantic coast. 

Now in London there are letters from the British min- 
ister which show this was not so. This is what Secretary 
Webster did have in mind: 

The United States needed a good harbor on the Pacific 
coast, so that when it was possible to carry on a larger 
trade with Asia, ships could come and go easily. Ships 
could not enter and pass out readily from the Columbia 
River, because in that day they were all sailing ships, at 
the mercy of wind and tide, and because of that terrible 
bar at the mouth of the Columbia. If Great Britain took 
the country north of the Columbia — and she had a good 
right to much of it — the Puget Sound harbors would be- 

[155] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

long to her. California at that time belonged to Mexico, 
and San Francisco was a Mexican harbor. So where would 
America find a good harbor? 

Secretary Webster did tell the English that he might 
give up all claim to the country north of the Columbia if 
he could make some arrangement with Mexico so that 
it would sell the harbor of San Francisco to America. 
He said this in 1842. Now he also said it again in 1843, 
after Whitman had been to Washington. And this shows 
that Whitman had very little influence. Webster did 
not try to push the arrangement then, because he expected 
to go to Great Britain as minister, or perhaps on a special 
embassy. But the war with Mexico broke out, and 
California became American. Then in the treaty of 
1846 with America, Great Britain put the boundary at 
the forty-ninth parallel, just as it was for a long distance 
east of the Rockies, and so America has many good har- 
bors on the western coast: San Francisco, Seattle, Tacoma, 
Bellingham, and others, besides the Columbia River har- 
bors, especially Portland. 

All the country that was ever really in dispute between 
Great Britain and America was that section which is the 
western half of the state of Washington — that section 
north and west of the Columbia River. No other part of 
the Oregon country was ever really disputed. 

It is true that in 1845 the country shouted "Fifty-four- 
forty or fight 1" which meant that Americans claimed all 
the country almost to Sitka, then Russian America. But 
years before, America had said over and over again 

[156] 




Map showing Old Oregon and the disputed section. That section 

was south of the present boundary and north and west of 

the Columbia River— the western half of Washington. 



[157] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

that she would be contented with the Hne of the forty-ninth 
parallel, and that cry was merely political. 

Now to go back to the "provisional government" in the 
Willamette Valley, in 1843. 

Dr. McLoughlin wrote to the Hudson's Bay Company 
at London that it was a very wise step and he was glad 
the Americans had taken it, because it would keep order. 

There were many rough men in the Oregon country, and 
the doctor had trouble with them. Three of them came 
on the company's land one day, with surveyors' chains, and 
told him that the fort was on American soil; that they had 
as good right there as he. They measured off some land, 
put a few logs together as a rough hut, and posted a notice 
saying that it was their claim. This was so lawless that 
the Americans themselves took the side of the British com- 
pany and ordered the men to keep away from the lands 
and fort of the Hudson's Bay Company. Yet it made 
hard feeling among the rougher class. 

Forty of these rougher men planned to drive all the 
white men out of the valley who had Indian wives. Most 
of these men were French-Canadian, but some were Ameri- 
can. The French-Canadians had been there many years; 
their lands were well cultivated, and their cabins good. It 
would be an easy way for lawless men to get a good cabin 
and farm. The French-Canadians, who were part Indian, 
got their guns ready, and so did many of the Americans 
who had Indian wives. But the better element refused to 
join these law-breakers; there were not enough of them to 

[158] 



WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? 

force the "squaw-men" out, and so the plot fell through. 

Others, again, planned to burn Fort Vancouver, so as to 
drive the British oft "American soil." But the ownership 
of the land north of the Columbia had not been settled by 
the governments. If the American Government had said, 
under that joint-occupancy treaty, that the British had as 
much right to settle there as Americans, why should Ameri- 
can citizens object? 

There were two hundred men working at the fort — 
French-Canadian half-breeds, farm hands and canoemen, 
with Indian helpers, and eight or ten officers, who were 
Scotch or English. It would be hard to defend the fort, 
because it would be hard to keep sentinels on duty. Men 
could not do farm work all day and be sentinels at night. 
It would be easy to burn the fort, with its wooden walls 
and its wooden buildings, and its few men — as compared 
with the number of settlers — and Dr. McLoughlin knew 
it. Year after year, as the immigrants had come in, from 
that fort had come kindness and help. From Fort Van- 
couver had come seeds and cattle and plows, flour and 
clothing and axes, and sometimes even medicines. Yet 
some men would burn it because it was British. 

Dr. McLoughlin thought the wisest thing to do was to 
send for British help, but not to show fear. Therefore 
no sentinels were set, no change made in the life at the 
fort, although every officer was constantly on the alert. 
The British vice-consul at the Sandwich Islands was asked 
to send a ship to protect the fort. 

In 1845 the ship came, a small, fourth-class ship-of-war. 

[159] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

She had a crew of one hundred and fifteen; she had 
also on board seventeen marines and thirteen boys who 
were under sixteen. No one today would think that very 
much of a warship. There were thousands of men and 
boys in the Willamette Valley. But the presence of the 
ship reminded the rougher class of Americans that Great 
Britain did have some right, until the boundary was settled, 
to trading posts north of the river. 

The presence of the ship added some fun to life in the 
valley. Dances were given on shipboard and the Ameri- 
cans invited. Sometimes the Americans gave dances in 
the biggest barn they could find, and invited the ship's 
officers. The thirteen boys wandered about on shore when 
on shore-leave, and made friends with the American boys 
of their own age. It was the habit, in old times, for Brit- 
ish gentlemen to send their boys aboard on a warship, 
partly to see the world, partly for the training, and often 
because many of them were to be naval officers in the 
future. It was a very practical school and there was an 
actual school on shipboard. The boys were all of good 
families. 

So for a year and half, even after the boundary was 
finally settled, the Modeste stayed in the river, anchored 
near Fort Vancouver. When the king or the queen had a 
birthday, the ship's cannon boomed out its salute. The 
crash of the guns echoed among the dense forests and 
across the blue river. It was a British salute to a British 
government. When the Fourth of July came, American 
boys and men planted powder In the stumps of the great 

[i6o] 



WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? 

trees left on land they were clearing, and fired them off 
together. The crash echoed, as the guns had done, across 
the blue river and through the forests. It was an Amer- 
ican salute in memory of the American Declaration of 
Independence. 

While the Modeste was in the river, an American ship- 
of-war came Into the Columbia, and anchored not far from 
the Modeste in the river. It was the Shark — Captain 
Howey. She remained there all winter. She had been 
sent by the American Government to see that all was 
well. 

When the Shark tried to leave the river, she was caught 
in the currents and struck on the bar. Immense waves 
crashed over her, and the officers and men escaped as best 
they could from the wild, foaming breakers. They saved 
their ship's papers and an American flag, besides the ship's 
signalling flags. There was no way of getting out of the 
Columbia River, or even to the Sandwich Islands, until 
some ship of the Hudson's Bay Company should be sailing 
in that direction. So the officers remained at Astoria for 
months. While they were there, word came that the 
Oregon boundary had been settled. At once Captain 
Howey of the Shark sent the ship's flag to Oregon City, 
So the first American flag to float over Oregon was one 
from a ship wrecked on the very bar which Captain Gray 
had so daringly crossed fifty-four years before. 

The settlement of the boundary was a great blow to the 
British traders. There was no way to get Into the interior 
except by the river, so far as they knew, and they had 

[i6i] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

tried to find a trail over the mountains. They did find one 
later. 

Why did Great Britain agree to the boundary of the 
forty-ninth parallel, when she had really a good right to a 
more southern one? 

These are the reasons: Great Britain and America 
had had two wars. The first, the Americans won; that 
was the Revolution. In the second, the War of 1812, 
nothing was really settled; but after four years the two 
countries agreed to stop fighting. The Americans were 
bitter against the mother country. But Great Britain said, 
in a roundabout way: "America and Great Britain are 
really one people. We have had two wars with America, 
and we want her friendship. This bit of country, covered 
with forests. Is not worth fighting about. Let America 
have the boundary line she wants." 

If you stop to think of it. Great Britain and America 
have the same language; almost the same laws; the same 
literature; and one cannot understand American history 
without studying English history. This is because America 
was an English colony for a hundred and fifty years, and 
because so many Americans — that is, their ancestors — 
came from England. 

Why did Great Britain say, "This bit of country is not 
worth fighting for" ? 

There is an Interesting story, which some people be- 
lieve, about a Captain Gordon, of the British ship America, 
who was sent by the British Government to report on 
Oregon. The story says that captain came into the 

[162] 



WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? 

Straits of San Juan de Fuca early In June, 1845. He was 
very fond of shooting and fishing; but the salmon would 
not rise to his fly, and the deer ran Into thickets where he 
could not get at them. Therefore he was disgusted, so the 
story goes, and said to an officer of the Hudson's Bay 
Company, " I would not give the bleakest moor in Scot- 
land for all this country I see about me." Therefore, It 
Is said, he reported to the British government that the 
Oregon country was not worth fighting for. 

Now, in truth. Captain Gordon came Into the Straits In 
September, 1845, and there is every reason to believe he 
sent a confidential report to Great Britain saying that the 
country was not worth fighting for; but not because the 
fishing and hunting were poor. He had that opinion long 
before he came into the Oregon country. And many 
Americans thought the same thing. 

Many people, you will remember, hearing of the fertile 
valley of the Columbia — It really was the Willamette — 
with Its beautiful, mild climate and Its friendly farming 
lands, went across the plains to the Oregon country. 
Imagine their surprise when they found the valley of the 
Columbia covered with dense forests of enormous trees; 
the friendly farming lands in the Willamette, In the Tuala- 
tin, the Clackamus, and other adjoining valleys, all taken 
up, except sections at a great distance or of a poor soil. 
And the beautiful, mild climate ! Why, it rained all win- 
ter — a light, soft rain, with low gray skies and endless 
mists, and dampness which penetrated the tiny log cabins 
and everything In them. These people loved the sunshine. 

[163] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

.They had expected to find fertile prairies where they could 
easily farm in a warm, bright, pleasant country. 

So they went on. Disappointed, they went to the Sand- 
wich Islands and down to California. Sometimes they 
passed directly through, without stopping in Oregon at all; 
sometimes they stayed there a winter, and said the chmate 
was "awful! " 

Now the Sandwich Islands in those days were a regular 
center of gossip. All the ships passing from Boston and 
New York to China stopped at the Sandwich Islands for 
masts for wood and water for fresh vegetables for san- 
dalwood and fruits; sometimes they were there for two 
or three weeks. These ships seldom came to Oregon or 
California. California belonged to Mexico, and the laws 
were so troublesome they did not trade there. Other 
whaling ships from the north went to the Islands for sup- 
plies. The British men-of-war had their headquarters 
there. A British consul lived there, and received regular 
dispatches from England; the American consul there re- 
ceived dispatches from America. Hudson's Bay Company 
ships from Oregon took lumber there. All ships centered 
there, and all classes of men met there. Sometimes there 
were five or six hundred ships stopping at the islands 
within a few months. Therefore all the news going was 
to be heard in the Sandwich Islands. We call them the 
Hawaiian Islands now. 

Now in these sunny Islands the British officers of the 
war ships, discussing Oregon — everyone discussed Oregon, 
in those days, all along the coast — heard of the dampness 

[164] 



WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? 

and dreariness of It. In the sunny Islands, with their blue 
skies and green palms, they heard of the dense, dark for- 
ests of Oregon; the terrible bar of the Columbia; the mists 
and the endless grayness of that north country. 

In the sunny lands of southern California, British vice- 
consuls at Monterey heard the same thing. And they 
heard it from Americans who said Oregon was over- 
rated. All these Immigrants who left Oregon and went 
to California had to go by way of the Sandwich Islands. 
So everywhere one heard of the gloom of that gray north 
country, with the terrible forests. There were few farm- 
ing lands, they said, and those were taken up. And this 
was true. It Is only as the forests have been cut down 
that there are farming lands In the logged-off country of 
Washington and of Oregon. And even the richness of the 
sandy-looking soil east of the Cascade Mountains was not 
known then. Few people, after traveling over the plains, 
wanted to settle In a " desert." 

And these reports about Oregon being overrated are 
really the reason that Great Britain did not think It worth 
while to go to war, even when Americans cried " Fifty- 
four-forty, or fight!" Captain Gordon, long before he 
ever saw Oregon, had decided it was not worth a war. 
And Great Britain wanted to be friends with America. 

Now these statements are not yet In any other history. 
But they are not guesswork. The author has seen the 
very letters from British vice-consuls in southern California 
and the Sandwich Islands, repeating what Americans and 
British both said of Oregon: that It was "overrated" and 

[165] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

not worth a war. And the small section actually in dis- 
pute really was not worth a war — not under any circum- 
stances. 

The treaty was signed in June, 1846. 

One can be glad that it was settled pleasantly. The 
friendship between America and Great Britain today is 
very close, as it should be; and we may all be glad that 
Great Britain gave up half a state, to which she had 
as good a right as we, rather than arouse the hatred that 
always follows a war. 



[166] 



CHAPTER XVII 

THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS 

IN early days all emigrants, after crossing the plains and 
the mountains to Fort Walla Walla, went down the 
Columbia River to the Willamette Valley, by trail or by 
boat. At first no settlements at all were made anywhere 
else than In the Willamette Valley and the adjoining val- 
leys, such as the Clackamus and the Tualatin. 

The first settlers In the Puget Sound country went there 
In 1845. Michael Simmons, a rough though honest man, 
was one of them; and George Bush, a mulatto, was an- 
other. There were only a half-dozen altogether. Emi- 
grants had not gone north before that because the British 
expected to be given the country north of the Columbia, 
and they did not encourage emigration there. Two other 
Important reasons were, that there was no farming country 
open to settlement north of the river, and the Indians were 
wilder, so there was more danger. North of the Colum- 
bia, except the lands used by the Hudson's Bay Company 
for their farming, there were only dense forests. Lum- 
bering and fishing were the only possible ways open to 
emigrants of earning money. 

When the boundary line was settled, however. In 1846, 
the Columbia River was not the dividing line. Most of 

[167] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

the Puget Sound country was given to America. The dis- 
covery of gold in California made timber and piles and 
shingles necessary, and settlers began to log-off the lands 
around Puget Sound. They wrote east to their friends of 
the pleasant climate and the beautiful country and the 
great tracts of land to be had for the taking. Many 
emigrants for the Puget Sound country, therefore, came 
across the plains to Fort Vancouver, then up the Cowlitz 
River and over the old Cowlitz trail to Olympia. 

There had long been a rumor of a good Indian trail 
from Fort Walla Walla across the Cascade Mountains to 
Puget Sound. If this was true it would save much time 
and travel, for emigrants could cross the mountains from 
the Yakima Valley and save perhaps two hundred miles or 
more. In 1853, word was sent to immigrants, even before 
they reached the Blue Mountains of Oregon, that a road 
had been cut through the forests of the Cascade Moun- 
tains, and that it would be easier for them to reach the 
Sound by the old Indian trail and the new road than by 
way of Fort Vancouver. So many travelers of that year 
tried to reach the Sound country direct by the route 
through the Nachess Pass. 

One summer night a party was camping in the Grande 
Ronde, that " Great Circle," In the Blue Mountains. 
The broad, grassy valley was twenty miles across, walled 
by high mountains. Through the green valley ran 
streams of ice-cold water, delicious after the dust of 
the waterless lava plains. Many tall trees grew there, 
though the forest was not dense. Wild-flowers glowed 

[168] 



THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS 

among the green grass. It was a charming place In which 
to encamp. 

In the Grande Ronde that night a ten-year-old boy 
named George was playing with his baby sister, a blue- 
eyed, golden-haired little girl of about a year old. Thirty- 
six of the white-winged prairie schooners of the immigrants 
were near by. George's father was looking after his tired 
horses, and other fathers after their oxen. The mothers 
were cooking supper. 

Suddenly a number of "horse Indians" rode up. They 
had dressed in their best to visit the white men. Buckskin 
shirts they wore, and leggins beaded in many colors, with 
brightly colored porcupine quills. Hawk's bells fastened 
on their shirts tinkled as they moved. Feathers were in 
their hair. The beaded buckskin saddle-blankets of their 
ponies were edged with deep buckskin fringe which swept 
the ground. They had come to see how the white people 
cooked and dressed and ate and lived. Those things 
always interested the Indians. 

A fine-looking chief — really a famous chief — named 
Peo-Peo-mox-mox, came over to watch George play with 
the baby. Carefully he watched the two for an hour, then 
he went away. And soon after supper both the golden- 
haired baby and George were sound asleep. 

Early the next morning, before the sun rose, some of 
the men went to look after the oxen and horses. To their 
surprise they found hundreds of beautiful Indian ponies 
grazing near their camp. Soon they met Indians driving 
in more ponies. At once they knew the Indians wanted to 

[169] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

buy something. And what do you suppose they wanted? 
That blue-eyed, yellow-haired baby! The famous chief 
had watched George play with her so that he might know 
how to do it after he had bought her. 

Baby's mother said "No!" Not for hundreds of 
ponies would she sell her baby girl. And the great chief 
who had come to get her rode sorrowfully away, striking 
his chest and saying, " My heart is very sick." 

As soon as breakfast was over that morning, the pro- 
cession of wagons started on again. There were thirty-six 
of them, and one hundred and forty-five persons, including 
the little children. They left the Grande Ronde, passed 
on by Fort Walla Walla, and started for Puget Sound by 
this new road over the mountains. The year was 1853. 

First they had to cross the Columbia River. There was 
no boat there to use as a ferry. It took four days to saw 
planks out of driftwood, just to make a clumsy raft to get 
across the river. 

Once across that river, the procession of prairie 
schooners went north to the Yakima Valley, following the 
Yakima River up through that valley where Alexander 
Ross had traded for horses with the Indians thirty-five 
years before. The river banks were higher, sometimes 
on one side and sometimes on another, so they had to 
cross the river eight times to keep as much as possible on 
fairly level ground. 

Then the travelers came to the Nachess River, as It 
wound and twisted through the mountains — and how 
many times do you think they crossed that? Sixty-eight 

[170] 



THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS 

times. One driver cut a notch in his whip-handle every 
time they crossed. Others counted up to fifty and then 
lost count. Sometimes, instead even of crossing straight 
over, they had to drive up the river bed, with the oxen 
stumbling about in the loose stones and plunging now and 
then into deeper water — travel up the river for a mile 
before they could find a bank low enough to allow them 
to land. Where the water was high, it came into the 
wagon box and things got wet. 

Besides crossing that river so many times, they had to 
travel through sagebrush as high as the wagon. The oxen 
had to crush it down before they could pass through it. 
The worst of it was that the poor beasts had almost 
nothing to eat. For fifty miles on the east side of the 
mountains there was no grass — nothing but the tips of 
alder and maple trees along the river bank. Both the 
oxen and the people were worn out by the time they 
reached the forest. 

If these immigrants had been fur traders with pack 
horses, and with no women or children, the problem would 
have been much easier than it was. The trail really was 
well known and much used by the Indians. But it is one 
thing to go through such a country with pack ponies, how- 
ever heavily laden, and quite another to drive oxen pulling 
their heavy, cumbersome wagons, with four great clumsy 
wheels. An Indian pony could travel forty miles or more 
while such a wagon was going four. 

When these immigrants reached the dense forests of 
the Cascade Mountains, words cannot tell their hardships. 

[171] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

They learned afterwards that settlers on Puget Sound had 
sent out men to cut the trees and clear a road through the 
forest. Indians, however, told these men, before they 
had done much work, that the white people had gone 
down the Columbia, on the usual route. So the road- 
makers shouldered their axes and went home. 

Many immigrants had indeed that summer gone down 
the Columbia; but these thirty-six wagons had not. 

These poor people could not go back. They could not 
travel again down the Nachess Valley and the Yakima 
with their starved oxen. The oxen would have died on the 
way, and probably many of the people also. At best, it 
would be full winter before any of them could reach Fort 
Vancouver. There was nothing to do but cut their way 
through that forest. 

Every man, woman, and child had to help in that awful 
road-making. The stronger men went ahead with axes 
and cut down the trees; others pulled the smaller trunks, 
when cut down, to one side, or chopped a passage through 
the larger ones. Trees which had fallen years before, 
and which blocked the forest in every direction, had to be 
cut through or cleared away. Then the women and chil- 
dren came after, hacking away at the undergrowth and 
the saplings, and pulling the lighter rubbish out of the 
way. Hungry and ragged, barefooted and almost naked, 
the little children, with their hatchets, hacked away at the 
underbrush. 

It was fearful work. The trees were large, and even 
the stumps left by the choppers were almost too high to 

[172] 



THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS 

drive over. They caught under the wagon beds of the 
heavy schooners, and the thin, weak oxen pulled almost 
in vain to get the wagon over. And not a single foot of 
that road was level. They were either going down a 
steep slope of some kind, or up a more gradual ascent. 
Do their best, they could not gain more than three miles a 
day, and their food was giving out. 

But on they pushed until they reached a point twenty- 
five miles south of Mount Rainier. Then the foremost 
wagon stopped; the ones behind had also to stop. Some- 
thing was the matter! Groups of men and women hurried 
forward, and stood near the leading team. They talked 
and they wept. The men were arguing. George and his 
mother hurried forward to see what the trouble was. 
George's mother saw it first. She said, "Well, I guess 
we have come to the jumping-off place." 

Directly in front of them the ground dropped away In 
a sheer bluff. For thirty feet or more it was straight up 
and down. Below that was a long, steep slope. No ox 
could stand on that slope, even alone; much less with a 
heavy wagon pushing on his heels. Nothing but a fly 
could stand upright on that sheer bluff. Men and women 
said to each other, "We can never go down there." 

So the men began to search for another road, or an- 
other trail over the mountains. There was none. All 
about them were hills. It was either go down that hill or 
go back. To go back was Impossible. It was go ahead 
or starve. 

One man in that train had a piece of rope one hundred 

[173] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

and eighty feet long. He had coiled It under the wagon 
box when he left the Missouri River, not knowing when 
or where it might be needed. Now when it was so badly 
needed, he drew out the staples that fastened It. Yet when 
a man took one end of It and slid down the hill to see if 
it was long enough, they saw It was too short. 

One of the Immigrants, James Byles, said: 

" Kill one of the poorest of my oxen. Make a rope of 
his hide, and fasten It to the end of this rope." 

They did so. Yet the rope was still too short. They 
killed another ox, and another, and still another. Four 
oxen they killed In all, cutting the green hide Into strips, 
knotting the ends together, and fastening all to the end of 
the rope. At last there was enough.^ 

In getting down the wagons, great care had to be taken. 
All the oxen but one pair were taken off the foremost 
wagon. One end of the rope was tied to the hind wheel, 
the rope twisted around a near by tree and "paid out" 
slowly, to prevent the wagon from plunging down the hill. 
The oxen put their feet together and slid down the bluff 
on their haunches — It was too steep to go down any other 
way. The wagon was held from crashing down upon them 
by the rope. After they got to the end of the rope, the 
wheels of the wagon were "rough-locked"; then small 
trees, with the branches still on, were cut down and fas- 



*This ox-hide rope story is disputed by a few of the old pioneers. 
Those with the best memories, however, remember the incident 
clearly; and it is vouched for by Mr. George H. Himes, assistant 
secretary of the Oregon Historical Association, who, incidentally, is 
the boy George mentioned in this chapter. 

[174] 



THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS 

tened to the rear wheels. These acted as a drag and the 
branches increased the resistance. So the oxen dragged 
the wagon down a quarter of a mile farther to the foot of 
the hill, where camp was made for the night. 

Each wagon had to go down in that way, and it was 
slow, slow work. Two wagons were wrecked, and some 
provisions lost. The wreck of the wagons was not so 
serious, but the loss of the food was. 

After reaching the bottom of this hill, the immigrants 
were almost at the foot of the Cascade Mountains, Yet 
they were still a long distance, with such teams as theirs 
were then, from Puget Sound. The oxen were unfastened 
and driven forward to a prairie, afterwards known as 
Connell's prairie, to feed. They were too weak to pull 
anything. The men stayed with the oxen. The women 
and children stayed with the wagons in the forest A few 
days later the oxen were brought back and hitched to the 
wagons, but they were still very weak. So everyone 
walked. 

By this time, things were desperate. The food had 
given out and the travelers were almost starved. Men 
were sent ahead on horseback to ask the settlers around 
Puget Sound to send them food. But no one knew whether 
the messengers would reach the settlers, or whether help 
could come. The messengers might even be lost in the 
forest. 

The horses and oxen belonging to George's father were 
so worn out he decided to stay with them on the prairies 
for a few days. Even had he gone back with them, the 

[175] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

family would have had to walk, just as everyone did. So 
ten-year-old George was left to take care of his mother, 
the baby sister, a little sister of seven, and a small brother 
of three. Eating a few berries on the way, as they could 
find them, the travelers started on foot for Connell's 
prairie. George sometimes carried the baby, sometimes 
loaded his little brother on his back, while the mother 
carried the baby, and the seven-year-old sister kept close 
by. 

One afternoon they came to the White River. It was 
too deep to ford, so the teams had to go down stream a 
mile to find a ford. One of the men cut down a tree to 
serve as a bridge. It was so large a tree that it crossed 
the river, but at the farther end the tip was partly under 
water and the current made it sway. 

When they came to that tree-bridge, everyone was 
ahead of George and his mother and the children. The 
mother said she must rest; so George took the little sister 
across on the log, set her down in the bushes, and came 
back for his brother. With those two safely across, he 
took the baby over and left her with the other children. 
Then he went back again for his mother. 

George took his mother's hand and helped her over, 
but she was very tired. When she reached the farther end 
of the log, where it swayed in the current, she lost her bal- 
ance and fell into the river. George quickly caught at 
some bushes with one hand and his mother's dress with 
the other. He held her until she could climb up on the log 
again. She wrung out her wet skirts and they went on 

[176] 



THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS 

two miles farther, where she gave out, and they all had 
to stop. 

They were over the worst of things by this time, but 
they were quite alone because the others had all reached 
Connell's prairie, which was not very far ahead. But the 
mother could go no farther. Leaving the children with 
her, George started off to find his father. Then they two, 
father and son, carried the worn-out mother to the camp 
fire, and went back again after the three little children 
whom they had had to leave alone in the forest at twilight. 
Yet even then, at the prairie, all the food there was to 
eat was a few baked potatoes. All day long, they had 
eaten nothing except a few berries; and for days before 
that they had been almost starved. 

But at last these brave people were over the mountains 
and out of the forest. The settlers who were living in 
their log cabins on Puget Sound, near what is now Olym- 
pia, sent men to them with bacon and potatoes and flour. 
The Hudson's Bay Company, from Fort Nisqually, sent 
beef to them and vegetables, so there was no longer any 
danger of starvation. And at last they were safe. 

They said afterwards that even the little piece of road 
which the axe-men had cut had been so badly done that it 
was no road at all — nothing but a good pony trail. But 
the next summer workmen were again sent out, and this 
time they cut a road clear through the forests and over 
the mountains. It was a rough road, but no immigrants 
after that ever had such a fearful struggle to get through 
the forest, or were in such danger of starvation. 

[177] 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES 

WHILE San Francisco was hardly more than a vil- 
lage, in 1848, a man came riding down the street 
one day, swinging a bottle of yellow dust in his hand, and 
shouting: 

"Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!" 

He had found gold in the sand of that river. Soon the 
news spread, not only throughout California, but all over 
the states bordering on the Atlantic. Throngs of men 
crossed to the gold fields. Tens of thousands came in 
1849, called the "Forty-niners." 

There were many cattle ranches in California, so beef 
was plentiful. But there were few farmers, and prac- 
tically no stores. The nearest stores for general supplies 
were in the Sandwich Islands and in the Old Oregon coun- 
try. Lumber, needed for mining, could be found only 
along the north Pacific coast. 

One day, in 1848, a ship entered the Willamette River. 
The captain was rather silent as to his business, but the 
settlers noticed that he bought many shovels and picks. 
He also bought great quantities of flour and wheat, of 
salmon and other fish. He asked for potatoes. The set- 
tlers began to quiz him. Then he told them that gold had 

[178] 




'10*^ 






-k,^ 



- •r:x»r-^ ' '"•■/''jiNiteig 



American Fionllr Cabin 




From an old p 



Oregon City in Early Days 



THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES 

been discovered in California. He was taking supplies 
down the coast. 

Other ships came to Oregon City, and still others. 
Many of them wanted lumber. The great forests along 




Thiclt Woods and Yer\{ Steep ^^^ 



Oregon City in 1845. From a sketch by Henry J. Warre and M. Vavasour. 

the Columbia and on Puget Sound supplied just the timber 
needed for piles, for wharves, and for shoring up the 
gold mines. San Francisco at first was a canvas city — a 
great city of tents. But the tents caught fire one day and 
the whole canvas settlement burned up In a very short 
time. It was necessary to build better houses, and boards 
and shingles and beams were needed. So the ships came 
north for lumber. 



[179] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Some of the settlers in Oregon dropped their farming 
and rushed to the gold fields. Others plowed broader 
fields and sowed larger crops, for prices paid were high. 
New immigrants easily found work helping to load the 
ships, and in farming. Others went to logging in the for- 
ests, or in the shingle business. Payment was made in 
gold dust. 

Little by little, although many went to the gold fields, 
the settlements in Old Oregon grew. 

Some years before gold was found, Portland was just a 
convenient camping place between Oregon City and Fort 
Vancouver. Later, for the convenience of passers-by, a 
log cabin was built there. After a while there were sev- 
eral log cabins, and then a small store with a few things 
for sale. Yet the place had no name; it was simply a 
convenient camping place. 

Two men who had claims there decided one day to 
name this camping place. One man came from Portland, 
Maine; the other from Boston, Massachusetts. Each 
wanted to name it for his home city. At last they agreed 
to toss up a coin — "Heads, Portland; tails, Boston." 
Heads won, so the little hamlet was called Portland. 
Many people have thought that Multnomah, the Indian 
name, would have been better. 

Portland, beginning with its few log cabins and a small 
store, grew rapidly. It was nearer the Columbia thai? 
Oregon City was, the water was deeper, and lumber from 
the hills along the river just as good. So it was easier 

[i8o] 



THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES 

for ships to land there. Soon a sawmill was built there. 
Other cabins rose among the firs and spruces and hem- 
locks; then other stores. San Francisco needed a great 
many supplies and a great deal of lumber. Many more 
ships came. In 1848, before gold was discovered, only 
three or four vessels entered the river during the whole 
year. In 1850, there were fifty ships. 

So the hamlet became a village, and the village a town; 
then the town became a small city, and that grew to a large 
city. Steamboats, soon after the discovery of gold, began 
to run regularly from Portland down the coast to Cali- 
fornia. Other boats went from Portland up the river to 
the fertile lands east of the mountains where white men 
were beginning to settle along the rivers and to plant 
their orchards and farms. They carried to these settlers 
plows and seeds and other supplies, such as groceries and 
dress goods. Then railroads came across the continent. 
Street cars came, and electric lights, large factories, great 
office buildings, and all the busy life which makes up a 
large city. 

The Columbia River still sends out its logs to countries 
where there are few trees. Even today the great log 
booms are floated down the river, and then down the 
coast to California. They are carefully put together, 
strongly chained, and drawn by a tugboat. Lying on the 
water, they look at a distance like a long, broad cigar. 
In spite of care, however, an ocean storm will sometimes 
break one to pieces and scatter the logs wildly up and 
down the coast, causing great loss to the owners. 

[181] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

But good timber was also to be found on Puget Sound, 
and many ships came to the east coast where Seattle and 
Tacoma and Olympia are. They came for timber and 
piles and shingles. Farm lands in western Washington 
were very scarce. The only possible business for most of 
the settlers was logging. That was the leading industry 
for many years — almost the only industry. 

Men with their ox teams went into the forests and 
felled the enormous trees. They cut off the branches and 
divided the long trunk into shorter pieces. Oxen hauled 
the logs to some point where they could be pushed into the 
water. Splash! Into the water they went, to be towed 
down as a boom to the nearest mill, where they were sawn 
into boards; or perhaps a small boom of the lighter logs 
was towed directly to the ship, to be sold as piles. These 
small booms were not rafted together and chained as were 
the ocean-going booms. They were merely enclosed in a 
circle of many logs, chained together at the ends, and 
floated down. 

The first sawmill at Seattle, built by Henry Yesler, 
began its work in 1853. Other mills soon came, more 
hands for the mills, more loggers for the forests, more 
houses for the people who were working, more stores to 
supply their needs. So Seattle grew, just as Portland had 
done, until it became a large city. 

In 1854, a pioneer cruised around Puget Sound looking 
for good farm land. Everywhere the land was densely 
forested, and farm lands hard to find. When he entered 

[182] 




Hauling the Logs 




1 k.wsl'uKlATION BY' Ox TEAM 




The Fallen Monarch of the Woods 




1^^£^ 



OcEAN-GoiNG Log Raft 



THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES 

the Puyallup River he found It full of logs which were 
being floated down to the Sound. A little farther north, 
on Commencement Bay, was a sawmill. This mill was not 
a very perfect one. Through some defect in the ma- 
chinery, the boards were always thicker at one end than 
the other; or sometimes they were thicker in the middle. 
But that sawmill was the first building on the spot now 
occupied by the city of Tacoma, although the real begin- 
ning of the city was not made until more than ten years 
later. 

On Bellingham Bay, in that same year, 1854, two men 
were logging. One night a hard storm blew down a great 
fir tree and the roots were upturned on the earth. Right 
underneath that tree was a vein of coal which could be 
plainly seen when the tree was uprooted. That was the 
beginning of Bellingham, for coal was needed on the 
Sound and the Columbia River, and immediately miners 
went there to mine it. Ships went there to load it; houses 
had to be built for the miners, and wharves for the ships. 
Stores were built there, because the needs of the miners 
and their families must be supplied. Later on fish were 
caught in vast numbers, salted, and shipped; then can- 
neries were built. So Bellingham grew into a city. At 
first there were two towns, close to each other, one named 
Fairhaven, the other Whatcom, These grew together and 
were made one city, now called Bellingham. 

East of the Cascade mountains, the country was not 
attractive to the immigrants. They reached it after 

[183] 



EARLY, DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

months of hardship. It was dry and dusty, covered with 
sand and sagebrush; the sun was scorching hot, there was 
no water, and they, tired and worn as they were, called 
it a desert. They were seeking the fertile valleys and the 
green forests of the coast. 

Dr. Whitman had discovered very early that, with 
water, delicious fruits and vegetables would grow In that 
dreary-looking sand. We know now that It is not real 
sand, but a lava-soil. Along the Walla Walla River, the 
Touchet, and other streams, later settlers built their log 
cabins, chiefly at first to enter into trade with the passing 
Immigrants. Later gold was discovered at Fort ColvUle, 
and at once miners rushed into the Colvllle Valley from 
the Willamette and some even from California. Other 
mines were discovered. The number of travelers in- 
creased, and so houses had to be built — pioneer hotels 
they were, although only log cabins — for these miners. 
Vegetables were raised, and fruits. Cattle throve on the 
juicy grass of the Plains of the Columbia. It was a coun- 
try where horses lived in vast numbers, for the wealth of 
the horse Indians was in their ponies. Gradually the 
country became more and more settled, and though the 
great Yakima war of 1 856-1 857 put an end to its settle- 
ment for a while, after the Indians became quiet again 
white farmers flocked Into it. Now the apples of the 
Yakima Valley and the Wenatchee Valley are known all 
over the world, as also the fruit of the Hood River Val- 
ley. It is a wealthy farming country. 

The irrigation canals of the Government have made 

[184] 



THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES 

it possible for farmers to settle even away from the 
rivers and streams in a country where there is little rain. 

Spokane was settled in quite another way. In 1872, 
when a white man spent two days fishing at the Spokane 
Falls, there were no cabins there at all, no settlers. A few 
white men had taken up claims on the upper and lower 
reaches of the river, but none at the falls. Then it was 
reported that the Northern Pacific Railroad would be com- 
pleted to the Pacific coast very soon. Such a railroad 
would need timber for ties and for station houses and for 
other purposes. Within a few months after that, three 
men built a sawmill at the falls where they could utilize 
the water power. Others joined them; a shop-keeper 
went there and opened a little store. Soon others came, 
for one reason or another, until there was a little hamlet 
there. When the railroad did come through, it made this 
little village one of its stations and at once it began to 
grow rapidly. There was great power in the falls for 
electricity, and for factories. Churches, schools, paved 
streets, and street cars came, and it became a city. 

The city of Spokane is only forty miles from the old 
trading post of Fort Spokane, from which Ross Cox rode 
on Le Bleu many years before, in his effort to get the 
Flathead furs. The city was named from the Spokane 
Indians, who claimed that country. 

Olympla was the first village in what we now call 
Washington. A few Americans came to the Tumwater 

[185] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Falls in 1846 and built a mill at the falls, several miles 
from Puget Sound. But it was a bother to haul their 
supplies either from the Sound or overland from the 
Columbia to Tumwater, so it was not long before several 
cabins were built at the mouth of the little stream on 
Puget Sound, where they could get their supplies of cloth- 
ing and sugar and flour direct from the passing ships. 
Soon there was a store there, and the place was called 
Newmarket. Afterwards, because it was on the trail from 
the Columbia River to Seattle and the villages farther 
north, a log-cabin hotel was built at Newmarket. That 
made it possible for people to stay there for a few days, 
while waiting for a ship, or waiting for friends who were 
coming to join them from the Columbia River, for many 
farmers moved from the Columbia and the Willamette 
into the Puget Sound country. Gradually the village grew. 
The shipping was never extensive, for the mud flats were 
too broad, and ships could not go close to shore, as they 
could at Seattle and Tacoma. So Olympia, though the 
state capital, is not yet a very large city. 

When Washington became a separate territory, how- 
ever, in 1853, Olympia was the largest town in it, and 
very central; so it became the capital. 

Before the steam railroads came, pioneers used very 
primitive railroads, when it saved expense in hauling. At 
first the railroads were simply wooden beams, fastened 
together, and set as firmly as possible, over which large, 
heavy cars, with great heavy wooden wheels, could be 

[186] 



THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES 

"drawn by oxen. The wood of the rails splintered badly, 
having no protection, and where tin plate or any other 
metal was convenient the tops of the rails were covered 
with the metal. Another plan, where tin could not be had, 
was to cover the rails with cowhide. 

Walla Walla once had such a railroad. Walla Walla, 
near the old fort and the old Whitman mission, was on 
the Oregon trail. A few farmers settled near by, raising 
fruits and vegetables, and owning droves of cattle, with 
large herds of horses, which they traded with passing 
Immigrants. Gradually other farmers came, stores with 
supplies for the settlers and the immigrants, until a little 
town was built up at that point. 

But all the supplies for Walla Walla had to come up 
the river from Portland, and the little town was six miles 
back. Therefore the settlers built a six-mile railroad, so 
that their plows, their barrels of sugar and flour and sacks 
of coffee, with nails and shingles, and all the many other 
things needed, might reach them more easily than by haul- 
ing them by teams. The Walla Walla Railroad was cov- 
ered with rawhide. One winter, when It was bitterly 
cold, the wolves came down from the higher mountains 
and prowled around the farms and villages, eating young 
calves and anything they could find. So hungry were these 
wolves that they even ate the cowhide off the railroad 
tracks, and the settlers told, in after years, how the 
wolves " ate up the railroad." 



[187] 



CHAPTER XIX 

EARLY ADVENTURES IN SEATTLE 

TWO young men, one morning in October, 1851, were 
cutting logs on a long point of land now called Alki 
Point. It is just across Elliot Bay from Seattle, and a 
part of West Seattle. It had not even a name then, and 
these two youths, Lee Terry and David Denny, were 
entirely alone. That part of Puget Sound was not settled 
at all, except for one or two farmers who had built cabins 
on fertile lands on the Duwanish River. 

The families of the two boys had just come across the 
plains to the Columbia River. Most of the fertile lands 
on the Willamette and in the Tualatin Valley had been 
taken up, and the two boys, with Denny's brother, had 
come up from Vancouver over the Cowlitz Trail, to 
search for lands. Fertile farming land on Puget Sound 
was hardly to be found, and knowing of the California 
trade In lumber, the older Denny had decided to settle on 
Alki Point and go to logging. He had gone back to the 
Columbia to get his family and the Terrys, who were 
relatives. The two boys were alone, trying to build a log 
cabin. One was nineteen, the other twenty-one. 

Suddenly, out from the gray mist which hung over the 
water that morning, came the black end of an Indian canoe. 

[188] 



EARLY ADVENTURES IN SEATTLE 

A moment later the prow grated on the beach, and Indians 
sprang ashore. They were dark, swarthy men, and there 
was httle that was friendly in their manner. 

At once they tried to get inside the little brush tent 
which stood on the shore. It was nothing but small 
branches and brush, leaning, on two sides, against a pole 
some eight feet from the ground, one end of which was 
fastened in a crotched stick, the other nailed to a big tree. 
Inside were the boys' blankets and food — everything they 
possessed. A little rough handling of the brush tent by a 
few of these brawny redskins would have pulled it all to 
pieces. 

Frightened though they were, the boys knew enough of 
Indians not to show fear. Lee Terry braced himself 
against the big tree and prevented the Indians from 
entering. The Indians pushed to get in, but were rather 
daunted by Terry's fearlessness. Soon they gave it up. 
They were not hostile; they merely wanted to steal. 
Seeing the boys were not afraid, they went back to their 
canoe. A few moments later its black end faded away in 
the gray mist. 

With hammer and axe, the only tools they had, the 
boys worked busily at building the cabin for their families. 
They could cut down the trees, but the logs were so heavy 
they had to ask friendly passing Indians to help them lift 
them and put them into place. They asked by signs. 
[They paid the Indians with bread — pioneer bread. 

Food was abundant. The Indians brought them fish of 
all kinds, crabs, wild geese and deer, and wapetoes — the 

[189] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

little, bitter, red Indian potato. But everything had to be 
cooked In a single tin pail. Their bread, mixed in the usual 
way, of coarse flour and water, with salt, was cooked on a 
flat board before the open fire. Meat was roasted on a 
spit, and so were fish, unless split open and cooked on a 
plank. 

Not long after this little Indian adventure, Terry had 
to go to Olympia. That would take several days, for he 
either had to go by trail, or the usual way, by Indian 
canoe, camping at night on the beach. David Denny, 
nineteen years old, was left entirely alone at Alkl Point 
for three weeks, working as best he could with the heavy 
timber and getting the cabin ready. 

He was tired of the loneliness, when one morning he 
was awakened by hearing the rattle of the chain of a 
ship's anchor. Pushing aside the boards he had set up in 
the unfinished cabin to keep Indians and wolves out, the 
boy ran down to the beach. There he found a little 
steamer, the Exact, landing his brother and other relatives 
and the Terry family. 

Ships were not usual in Puget Sound at that time, but 
several gold-seekers had chartered this boat to take them 
to the Queen Charlotte Islands, and the pioneers had 
succeeded In getting passage. But it had taken them a 
week to go down the Columbia River from Fort Van- 
couver, up the coast, and through the Straits of San Juan 
de Fuca to Alki Point. The boat was overcrowded and 
everyone seasick, and it had been a hard voyage. 

So now they had reached their new home — this lonely, 

[190] 



EARLY ADVENTURES IN SEATTLE 

tree-covered point. The sky was gray and the rain was 
falling. The low, gray mist shut out the long line of 
snowy Olympics which are so glorious when the sun shines. 
The water lapping the beach at their feet was gray. Life 
itself seemed gray to some of those lonely, homesick, 
women. It was so forlorn some of them sat down on logs 
in the rain on the beach and cried. The men were busy 
at once pulling back the baggage and barrels of salt pork 
to prevent the rising tide from carrying it away. 

With all these newcomers, there were twenty-four peo- 
ple — twelve children and twelve grown people. Yet there 
was only this one tiny log cabin, and that unfinished. The 
roof was not yet all on, and there was no door. The 
rainy season had begun, for they landed on November 13, 
1 85 1. Day after day rain fell softly and gently, and 
day after day the gray waters of Puget Sound rolled 
in front of their cabin and the gray mist hung low. A 
second cabin was begun at once, but it was weeks before 
it was finished. Even so, twelve people in each cabin was 
far from being comfortable. 

The Indians were friendly, but curious. They came in 
throngs, setting up their tepees close around the log 
cabins. They were so interested in everything the white 
men did that it was impossible to keep them out of the 
cabins. 

The settlers at last solved that problem by cutting the 
door in halves, an upper half and a lower half. It was 
the style of door used by the early Dutch settlers also, in 
New York and other eastern states. It is usually called a 

[191] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

" Dutch door." The lower half was fastened close to the 
ground by a wooden pin; the upper half was open for 
light and air. The Indians, after this was done, could 
stand at the door and watch the white people, but it was 
not nearly so easy to get in. 

Before the Dutch doors were used, the curiosity of the 
Indians was very trying to the mothers. 

One day a mother was frying some fresh fish at the 
open fireplace. An Indian walked in and sat down on a 
stool by the fire. The fragrance of the fresh fish made 
him hungry, and after a few moments he put out a long, 
red finger to steal a piece from the pan. The mother 
lifted her knife quickly, as though to strike him with the 
broad side of it, and the Indian pushed back his stool. 

Another day, a mother was baking some bread on a 
board in front of the open fire. An Indian, sitting close 
by the fireplace, started to poke his finger into it. She 
picked up a wooden fire-shovel, quickly stirred up the hot 
coals with it, and then like a flash slapped the Indian hard 
on his bare legs with that hot shovel. Out of the door, 
with a yell, went that redskin. The frightened mother 
sat down on a stool and wept. The Indians were not 
warlike, yet she wondered if he would come back and 
scalp her. 

Back they did come, sure enough. She heard the jab- 
bering of a crowd of Indians, talking in their own lan- 
guage, and bravely she stepped to the door. There the 
red men stood, with this fellow in front, pointing her out. 
They did not attack her, but she found afterwards that 

[192] 



EARLY ADVENTURES IN SEATTLE 

he pointed her out as dangerous. He warned the other 
Indians to let her alone. 

The settlers depended upon the Indians for their food. 
They brought in fresh fish — salmon, trout, and smelt, 
clams and crabs, besides halibut and many other kinds. 
Game was plentiful, for the woods were full of elk 
and deer. They brought Irish potatoes, which the Hud- 
son's Bay Company had taught them to plant years be- 
fore; and they brought also the small red Indian potato, 
the wapeto. Another Indian vegetable was the camas 
root, looking like a small round onion, but rather sweet. 

Their prices were not in money. They sold a large 
salmon for a yard of red flannel; many potatoes would 
they sell for a bright, shining tin pail. 

Bacon and salt pork were brought to the settlers by the 
passing ships, which came for lumber. Flour came from 
Chile and was as yellow as gold. Sugar and tea came 
from China. Only one family that first year had a cook 
stove; that they had brought over the plains. The other 
family cooked by an open fire. Cook stoves at Olympia, 
without any store furniture at all, cost eighty-five dollars 
in pioneer days. 

Groceries were very expensive. Besides the high price 
at Olympia, one had to pay also for an Indian canoe, two 
men to paddle It — two days there and two back — besides 
all the food those Indians ate In four days. 

The first winter at Alkl Point proved that the location 
was not a good one. There was no harbor, and the high 
winds sweeping across the point made It almost Impossible 

[193] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

to load ships there. Early in the spring, two or three 
settlers, in a canoe paddled by Indians, went over to 
Elliott Bay to sound the depth of water, as that seemed 
a better location. With a horseshoe fastened to the end 
of a cotton clothes line, they sounded the bay and found 
the water very deep, even close to the shore. 

The spring and summer of 1852, therefore, nearly all 
the members of these two families moved over on the 
shore of Elliott Bay, where Seattle now stands. They left 
the point, which they had first called New York. After 
they moved to the new location, they called the old one 
New York Alki — alki^ being the Indian word for by-and- 
by. Now it is simply known as Alki Point. 

The winter after the first cabins at Seattle were built, 
1 852-1 853, one settler bought two barrels of salt pork 
for forty-five dollars each, and paid twenty dollars for a 
barrel of flour. Prices were very high, as they always are 
in pioneer countries. The pork, however, was half of it 
lost to the settlers. One barrel was left high and dry 
above the tide mark until it should be needed, while the 
other was opened for use. A winter storm, driving the 
waves high one night, swept away the second pork barrel, 
which was never seen again. A torchlight search for it, 
and several days of daylight search, failed to find it. Yet 
there was food enough at hand In the fish and game, and 
no one suffered. 

The life of the pioneers was a very busy one. Besides 
their day's work in the forest, the men made most of their 

iPronounced so that it almost rhymes with silky. 

[194] 



EARLY ADVENTURES IN SEAXTLE 

own furniture. They made tables, chairs, low stools, and 
bedsteads with wooden planks instead of with springs. 
But the wooden planks were covered with big feather beds, 
so they were not uncomfortable. Feathers were readily 
bought from the Indians, and a few had brought the feather 
beds with them over the plains and the mountains. The 
tables were long, wide planks, split from the trees. They 
were hinged at the side so that they hung down against 
the wall when not in use, as the cabins were so small. 
Small round slabs from logs, with the bark peeled off, 
served as stools. Higher ones were sometimes used at the 
first, for chairs. It was just like sitting on a smoothed- 
off stump that could be moved about. Other chairs were 
made from barrels, with feather cushions. Children slept 
on a very low bed, which during the daytime was pushed 
under the big bed. 

The first lamps were shells, or sometimes cups, filled 
with dog-fish oil, bought from the Indians. A bit of 
cotton rag served as a wick. The strongest light came 
from the open fireplace. 

Seattle was named after the friendly Indian chief, 
Seattle. He did not want his name used at first, because 
the Indians fear to have their name spoken after they are 
dead. Old Seattle was afraid his spirit would be troubled 
in the Ghost-Land, because he would hear it every time 
the name was spoken aloud. But the Americans made the 
kindly old chief so many presents that he was willing to 
take the risk. They told him, also, that it was a very 
great honor. 

[195] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

The first post office in Seattle was opened in 1853; it 
was only a log cabin. The settlers had to pay twenty-five 
cents for each letter brought to Seattle from Olympia ; 
this was in addition to the postage paid in the beginning 
by the person who sent the letter. The mail boat from 
Olympia was an Indian canoe. The trip took two days 
each way in summer, but when it was stormy and in 
winter, when the Indians had to camp on the beach at 
night, the trip took three days. 

On return letters, the settlers had to pay twenty-five 
cents to get the letter to Olympia, besides the regular 
postage from Olympia to its address in " the States." This 
regular postage was from twenty-five to fifty cents. Rate 
of postage in those days was governed by the distance. 



[196] 



CHAPTER XX 

THE LIFE OF THE CHILDREN 

CHILDREN had a happy time In those days, as chil- 
dren always do if their homes are happy. Small 
boys of eight and ten were taught to shoot and a boy at 
fourteen, unless he was very small, was almost a man. 
Many a boy in early days has been routed out of bed in the 
middle of the night by his father, and they two with their 
guns rushed quickly out of the cabin because the squealing 
of a calf told that it was being attacked by a bear or a 
cougar. Small girls were frightened almost out of their 
senses sometimes, at night, by the wild scream of a cougar 
from a tree-branch near their cabin. Yet as the forests 
were cleared, the wild animals, who usually had plenty to 
eat from young deer and elk, lived in the deeper woods. 
The best playground was along the banks of a river, or 
Puget Sound. The Sound was particularly a good play- 
ground. There were brightly colored stones, and gleaming 
shells. One could find clams by digging in the sand and 
rocks at low tide. At low tide, also, there were the star- 
fishes, purplish and yellow and straw-colored. There 
were sea cucumbers, a fish which looked like a big curved 
cucumber when It lies in the water. It has no fins or tail 
or mouth or eyes that one can see; and if it gets left on 

[197] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

the shore by the retreating tide the hot sun wilts it down 
until it is just like a wilted old cucumber, and almost as 
soft as jelly. There were small crabs which scampered 
about madly If one overturned the middle-sized stones. 
There were the other larger crabs which mother was glad 
to get for the table. It was great fun to play on the 
shores of Puget Sound. Sometimes there was danger, 
however. 

One family of children, one bright spring day, were 
allowed to go to the beach with their dog Watch. They 
were not to go beyond the " three big stones." Picking 
flowers from the edge of the woods, watching the roll of 
the broad stretch of water, and the gleaming snowy peaks 
across Puget Sound, these children wandered farther than 
those stones. Two of them climbed the bank, near an old 
log lying flat on the ground, to pick wild currant blos- 
soms. But no sooner were the red blossoms in their hands 
than they noticed the strange behavior of Watch. His 
bristles stood on end, fear and rage were in his actions, 
his muscles were quivering, as very slowly he backed 
toward the children. Frightened by the dog's strange 
actions, the children tumbled down the low bank and ran 
back to their old playground along the beach, for they 
had gone beyond those three stones. A few days later, 
Indians asked them to come to their camp, not far away, 
and there was a cougar about nine feet long which had 
been killed near that old log beyond the stones. It is not 
unlikely that the great beast was hidden in the hollow log, 
or close beside it, and the frightened dog had known it. 

[198] 



THE LIFE OF THE CHILDREN 

There were wild flowers in the woods — trilliums and 
rhododendrons and wild syringa, besides the bright red 
flowers of the currant, and many another. But children 
went very little into the dark, cool woods, with its tower- 
ing great trees, because of the wild animals which might 
be there. 

Waterways were the only roads, except the narrow 
Indian trails through the dim forests. So children learned 
early how to paddle and swim, and the waters were full 
of fish, just as the shores abounded in crabs and clams. 

When the children first came to the Oregon Country, 
they wore clothing of cotton and wool. But if that wore 
out, and there were no stores near by, how were they to 
dress? At first, you remember, when there was only an 
elk skin hung in the open doorway, Indians pushed it aside 
and walked in. They wanted to see how white people 
lived. Later, when the lower half door kept them out, 
they leaned over it, and Indian mothers watched the white 
mothers wash and iron and sew and darn and patch their 
children's clothing. But when it was quite worn out, and 
patching did no good, the white mothers had to watch the 
Indians. They saw that the Indian women wore buckskin 
clothing; that they used deer sinew Instead of thread. 
And the white mothers had to learn from their red 
neighbors. 

At first they were not successful. The buckskin when 
wet behaved dreadfully. If the boys were caught In a 
light rain In the woods, while picking salal berries or 
Oregon grapes so that mother could make most delicious 

[199] 



EARLY, DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

jam, or the older boys, dressed in buckskin also, were 
rained upon when cutting brush in the clearing, or logging 
with their fathers, their trousers would stretch until the 
heels dragged on the ground. Then, when they stood 
before a fire and dried the buckskin, it became as hard and 
stiff as tin. White women learned after a while that buck- 
skin must be properly smoked, as the Indians smoked it, 
else it was useless for clothing. 

When a few stores came, even if there was no thread, 
mothers bought heavy canvas, and the children raveled 
it out for thread; but deer sinew had to be used for 
strong thread. 

Even before schools came the days were busy ones, for 
the girls helped mother with the housework and with the 
little children, while the boys helped in burning the twigs 
and small branches in the clearing around the cabin, in 
cutting underbrush, in milking the cows and tending the 
horses, and in all the endless work that there is in a 
pioneer homestead. 

At night, if they read at all, it was stretched out on the 
floor before the open fireplace, just as Abraham Lincoln 
had done when a boy in his log-cabin home on the Illinois 
prairie. The lamps of dogfish oil gave very little light. 
But the children, after a busy day, were too sleepy to stay 
up late. And even after they went to bed, they heard only 
for a short time the lonely cry of the loon, or perhaps the 
song of an Indian mother near by, singing to her papoose. 

Settlers when they first came had to put up with many 
hardships. Near the Nisqually River, one fall, came a 

[200] 



THE LIFE OF THE CHILDREN 

settler too late to build a cabin. Yet he had a wife and 
six children. The stump of an enormous tree stood on his 
"claim" and he took that for a house. He cleared out 
the stump, burned out the roots, and roofed it over with 
shakes. Then his family lived in It while he cleared out a 
second stump near by. In those two stump-houses did they 
live all winter. His wife said the "house" was very 
comfortable, and that the hollow, burned-out roots were 
delightful "cubby holes" for small bundles. The children 
thought it was the greatest fun. The next summer, how- 
ever, the settler built a regular cabin, and used the stump- 
houses for barns. 

The stumps were a problem for the settlers, because 
they were so large and so hard to get rid of. They used 
to blow them up with gunpowder. This was a good way 
of celebrating the Fourth of July, because the explosions, 
so many together, made a very loud noise. Sometimes the 
settlers tried to burn them, heaping brush around them 
after they had dried out a little. It was slow work, and 
if the children played among them or touched them, the 
black would come off on faces and hands and clothes, until 
one could hardly believe them white. Governor Stevens's 
little girls used to play in the clearings, and sometimes 
their mother let them go out with white dresses. But the 
dresses did not stay white very long, among the black 
stumps. 

Sometimes even the girls had adventures. Mary James, 
and that was her true name, had one. Mary James 
herself told the author this story: 

[201] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

At first, Mary lived at Mound Prairie, where she used 
to wander about with other children picking salal berries 
and Oregon grapes. At first they did not know whether 
the berries were poisonous or not, so they watched their 
pet pig who followed them about like a dog. If the pig 
ate the berries, the children did. 

Then Mary's father moved out on the northern point 
of Gray's Harbor. She could look out through a few 
trees, and beyond see the broad waters of the Pacific 
Ocean. Her father and mother and brother, with one or 
two hired men, were all the white people at that point. 

One morning Mary was helping her mother around the 

cabin, when, glancing out of the door, her eye caught the 

flash of paddles. She watched for a moment, and then 

saw two long canoes full of Indians draw up on the beach 

.just below the cabin. 

" Mother," called the frightened fourteen-year-old girl, 
"the Indians are coming." 

Mother was an Englishwoman and a very brave little 
lady. By the time she got to the cabin door the Indians 
had reached it. There were thirty or more of them, big, 
strong men from the northern coast, bold and daring. 
They were not at all like the Puget Sound canoe Indians. 

These northern Indians crowded into the little cabin, 
offering no harm to Mary and her mother, but picking up 
everything they saw, handling everything, curious about 
everything. 

After a while, one of the Indians, using the Chinook 
jargon, asked where the men were. Mrs. James answered 

[202] 



THE LIFE OF THE CHILDREN 

carelessly, "Oh, they are just outside. They will be here 
in a few minutes." 

But she knew, even as she spoke, that Mr. James was 
six miles away, with the men, cutting hay in a meadow. 
There was no chance at all of their coming. And Mrs. 
James knew that her danger and Mary's was very 
serious. These Indians were likely to steal them and take 
them north in the war canoes that lay outside on the 
beach. 

Mary was very much frightened. She was very white 
and the Indians saw it. They began to talk about her. 
She knew they were from the way in which they looked 
at her. Even her lips grew white. 

" Mary," said her mother quickly, seeing the danger, 
"play on the melodeon. Play something at once." 

In the corner stood the little melodeon which the James 
family had brought from England with them, first to Wis- 
consin, then across the plains to Mound Prairie, and now 
out to the coast. Mary's music teacher, while they lived 
at Mound Prairie, had been a drummer in Napoleon's 
army in France. 

The little girl sat down and tried to play; but her 
fingers were stiff and cold. Still, she could push down a 
key or two and make some noise. At once the Indians 
became interested in the melodeon. They forgot Mary, 
so she became less afraid. Gradually her fingers lost their 
stiffness and she played more easily. The Indians were 
amazed. Where did the music come from? They got 
down on the floor and looked under the melodeon, and 

[203] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

under her chair — looked everywhere except In the right 
place. 

The Indians were so charmed that some of them went 
out to their canoe and brought In quantities of hiaqua 
shells, the Indian money; they brought in mats and baskets 
and other treasures, and probably also fish. Everything 
they laid down In the center of the cabin floor. Then they 
told Mrs. James they wanted to buy Mary for a wife for 
their chief — with the melodeon, of course. 

Mrs. James was very brave and very quiet. She said, 
"Oh, no, Mary is too young." She talked to them pleas- 
antly, yet firmly, and made them some presents, and at 
last the Indians went away. They went In a friendly way, 
and left without doing any harm at all. 



[204] 




Copyright by Romans Photographic Co. 

Snoqualmie Falls, Washington 

" The Niagara of the West." The river rising in the Cascade Mountains 
flows through forest and gorge, of scenery unsurpassed, to its plunge at the 
Falls of 270 feet. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA 

THE very year in which the first immigrants hacked 
their way through the Nachess Pass, in 1853, Wash- 
ington was set off from the Old Oregon country as a terri- 
tory. Its Hmits were not, however, just what the state 
limits are today. Two years later, in 1855, the governor, 
Isaac I. Stevens, tried to make treaties with the Indians 
so that the new white settlers might have their lands. 

The first treaties were made around Puget Sound. The 
Indians did not care much about it. In that country, 
where the light canoes darted easily through the water, 
and life was easy because of the fish in the waters, the 
natives cared little about land. Besides, the treaties gave 
them the right to fish, and to hunt deer in the forests. 

Even if they sold all their lands, they would have 
enough to eat. There were trout, smelt, flounders, cod, 
salmon, and many another fish, even whales, in the waters; 
and crabs and clams and goey-ducks in the sandy beaches. 
Wapato roots and camas roots grew abundantly. There 
were many berries — salal, huckleberry, wild raspberry, 
and blackberry, as well as the Oregon grape; wild crab 
apples and wild cherries were also found. Flying over 
the water, or swimming in it, were ducks and geese and 

[205] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

other wild fowls. So these canoe Indians paid less 
attention to selling their lands than the horse Indians. 

The horse Indians, in the interior, east of the mountains, 
lived a very different life. Horses were their wealth. The 
importance of a chief lay in the number of Indian ponies 
he possessed, and some had herds of three thousand or 
more, grazing on the rich grasses which grew out of the 
sandy soil. Painted ponies, or calico ponies as they were 
called, were the pride of the Indians; that is, horses hav- 
ing large spots of color, such as a brown pony with large 
spots of white, or a white pony with bluish spots. 

These Indians also lived by hunting. They chased the 
elk and deer, and the Nez Perces even crossed two moun- 
tain ranges — the Bitter Root and the Rockies — to chase 
buffalo on the Great Plains. There were deer and elk 
among their mountains. But the streams were broken by 
falls, so that the salmon could not penetrate beyond cer- 
tain rocky barriers which were too high for fish to jump. 
Because they were horse and hunting Indians, they had to 
have wide stretches of country. Selling their lands was 
quite a different matter. 

So the first treaties were made, and rather easily, around 
Puget Sound. The others were to be made with the In- 
dians east of the Cascade Mountains, and Governor 
Stevens had called a great council of all the chiefs. 

Forty soldiers, with officers, were sent from Fort Dalles, 
and they went up the river in boats, while servants drove 
up a small herd of half-wild cattle. On the backs of ponies 
and in carts were great heaps of potatoes. In other 

[206] 



THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA 

bundles were Lidian trading goods. A treaty could not 
be made without feasts and without presents. 

Governor Stevens, with some of the treaty-makers, rode 
over to eastern Washington. Hazard Stevens, a boy of 
fourteen, was with his father, and he tells the story. 

The council was to be held in the Walla Walla Valley. 

The tents of the white men were pitched in a wide, 
grassy valley, beautiful in the May sunshine. Herds of 
sleek Indian ponies and droves of long-horned Spanish 
cattle grazed In the wide sweep of the valley where today 
stands the city of Walla Walla. To the southeast lay the 
long line of shimmering blue of the Blue Mountains. 

One afternoon, after runners had come in to announce 
them, the Nez Perces Indians came in sight, and paused 
half-seen in a depression of the hills. There were twenty- 
five hundred of them. A single brave came forward with 
a large American flag, which he planted near the white 
officials. 

Then, two by two, over the crest of a low hill and down 
into the valley, came the Nez Perces, a thousand warriors 
on splendid horses forming a long line across the valley. 
They were gay indeed. Their faces and bodies were 
painted in stripes and squares and in curious designs, in the 
four Indian colors — red, yellow, blue, and white. Plumes 
waved from their carefully braided hair, bright with gay 
ribbons. And even the ponies were gayly painted in bright 
colors. A white or yellow pony was striped with red; a 
black one with red and white. Some had blue stripes. 
Their saddle blankets were beaded in many colors, and the 

[207] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

long fringe of buckskin swept the ground. Plumes were 
fastened in the horses' manes. 

After galloping forward a short distance in this long 
line — and riding two by two it stretched across the valley 
— all stopped at a signal. The head chief, Lawyer, with 
two other chiefs, after riding forward, sprang off their 
ponies and shook hands with the treaty-makers. Twenty- 
five lesser chiefs then did the same. Then the long line 
of warriors galloped forward. 

With their brightly painted faces and bodies, with 
plumes waving on themselves and their gay ponies, up they 
dashed ! They came yelling and whooping, beating their 
war drums, firing off their guns, crashing their heavy, 
smoked-rawhide shields together, in a wild uproar of noise. 
On and on they came ! The white men were almost deaf- 
ened by the banging of guns, the crashing of shields, the 
hollow booming of the war drums, and the whooping. 
They dashed close up to the group of treaty-makers as 
though they would ride over them — then in an instant 
turned their cleverly trained ponies and wheeled backward. 
Again they dashed madly forward, and again, at a signal, 
the ponies stopped still, instantly. The warriors sprang oft 
their horses, and stood beside their chiefs. 

This was the Nez Perces welcome to the Americans. It 
was done to show off their beautiful ponies, and their skill 
in managing them. It was just the same sort of welcome 
these Nez Perces had given to the Whitmans, nearly 
twenty years before. 

Some of the young warriors formed a ring, then, and 

[208] 



THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA 

began a wild dance, moving arms and feet and legs while 
keeping time to the music. The tom-tom — an Indian drum 
made of rawhide — was beaten by four braves, squatting on 
their heels on the ground, and the drummers and the 
dancers kept time in that wild, half-wailing Ai-ai-ai-ai-ai~ai-ai 
of Indian music. 

It was great fun to fourteen-year-old Hazard Stevens. 

While the men were dancing, the busy squaws, all gayly 
dressed, were setting up the tepee poles and making 
camp. 

Then other tribes came in. But these tribes, the Walla 
Wallas, the Umatillas, the Cayuses, and the Yakimas, were 
not so friendly. Some came in with a wild dash, like the 
Nez Perces, but with less friendliness. Others came sul- 
lenly, refusing to shake hands, refusing later to accept 
gifts, or even to take any food as a gift. These people 
kept away from the feasts almost altogether. 

A feast came first. Beeves were killed and dressed. 
Huge fires were built in some places, and the entire ani- 
mals roasted on spits before the blaze. Others were cut 
up, and cooked by Indians at small fires near their 
tepees. 

The table for the chiefs was a very long one, made of 
split boards, smoothed on top, with tin plates and cups. 
Hunting knives were used with which to cut. Here the 
chiefs, with the treaty-makers, had their feasts, under an 
awning to protect them from the sun. Governor Stevens, 
during the first feast, carved at one end of the table, and 
another officer at the other. But there were so many 

[209] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

chiefs, and the big tin plates came back so rapidly, that 
he ordered another officer, at the later feasts, to take his 
place. Carving for that throng of Indians, with Indian 
appetites, was hard work, he said. 

Then the council was held. The tents of the Americans 
were pitched among the wild flowers and the green grass 
by the side of a charming little stream. Here Governor 
Stevens had a large tent. In front of it was an arbor built 
of tree branches. And here sat the semicircle of chiefs, 
squatting on their heels, wild and savage in their paint and 
feathers. 

And here, again and again, the Indians said they would 
not sell their lands. 

Day after day the council met. Sometimes the sun shone 
and the wide-sweeping valley, with its thousand or more 
of tepees, its droves of horses and herds of cattle feeding 
on the fresh green grass, was glorious in its May beauty. 
And sometimes the rain fell and the Indians sulked in their 
damp tepees and talked among themselves. 

Nothing at all seemed to be done, yet the Indians com- 
plained that the white men were in too much of a hurry. 
It did seem as though time might be given to think it over, 
for the Americans were asking the Indians to give up their 
home lands, to give up everything in the world they had; 
for that was what it meant to give up the lands of their 
tribes and go on a reservation. Besides, it meant giving 
up their freedom. Supposing white men were asked to 
make a treaty by which they were obliged, and all their 
children after them, to live just In one small county — 

[210] 



THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA 

never to leave it, never to go away! As the white people 
came in, the Indians knew, the deer and wild game would 
go away. So there would be no more hunting. 

So day after day that council met. But the Indians said 
they wanted time for horse races. Therefore the council 
held no meetings while the thousands of Indians idled in 
the sunshine and watched the racing horses. And day by 
day the few soldiers loitered among their tents under the 
Cottonwood trees, by the pleasant little stream, and under 
the willows which bordered the creek. They looked out 
over the broad, rolling valley which they were asking the 
Indians to sell. 

Feast after feast was held. Still the Indians put off any 
treaty by which they would give up their lands. They said 
the earth was their mother, and they could not sell her. 
When they sat upon the ground, the Indians said they were 
" reposing on the bosom of their great mother." 

Governor Stevens explained that the white people were 
coming into their land. They wanted to build houses; to 
plow the land and raise grain; they wanted to bring their 
wives and children with them. 

Peo-peo-mox-mox, the great Walla Walla chief, said, 
" Stop the white men from coming up here until we have 
had this talk. Let them not bring their axes with them. 
They may travel through our country if they do not build 
houses." 

Lawyer, a Nez Perces chief, said, "The white man is 
our brother. We must follow in the white man's trail." 
He meant that it would be wiser to follow the customs of 

[211] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

the white man, because a great change must come into their 
own ways of living. Lawyer was a wise chief. 

Then another feast was held. Thirty chiefs again sat at 
the long table. The officers carved the roast beef and piled 
up the tin plates with beef and potatoes. The chiefs ate 
like starved wolves. 

Yet in spite of all the feasts and the councils, nothing 
could be done. The Cayuse Indians and others were bitter 
toward the whites, and secret meetings were being held 
among the tepees. 

Suddenly, late one night. Lawyer came to Governor 
Stevens's tent. He said the Cayuse Indians were plotting 
to kill all the white men, so that they should not have to 
sell their lands. They had asked the Nez Perces chiefs to 
have their tribe join the plot. Lawyer had refused quickly. 

It was after midnight, yet the faithful Indian ordered 
his wives to pull down his tepee and set it up in the midst 
of the American camp. Thus the Indians could not attack 
the Americans without attacking Lawyer also; that would 
mean a war among the tribes. Without the warning, the 
Governor and his soldiers would probably have been mas- 
sacred. There were fewer than a hundred white men, 
including all. There were thousands of armed Indians. 

Again the feasts were held, and councils. The Great 
Father at Washington, Governor Stevens told the Indians, 
would give them money every year; would give them lands 
which could never be taken away from them ; would allow 
them to hunt over the country until it was settled; would 
build for them mills, and send them teachers of farming; 

[212] 



THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA 

would build schools for their children; would give them 
blankets and clothing every year. It was the same promise 
that was made to the Puget Sound Indians. 

At last the Indians agreed to sell their lands. They 
really could not help themselves. They were forced into 
saying "Yes." Therefore some of the chiefs really did not 
mean to give up their lands. They were plotting revenge. 

Just as everything seemed settled, up rode another Nez 
Perces chief, Looking-Glass. He came with a war party, 
shouting and whooping and tossing high on coup-sticks the 
fresh scalps they had taken. He had never been a friend 
of the Americans. 

" My people, what have you done?" he demanded, when 
told of the treaty they were just making. "While I was 
gone, you have sold my country! I have come home and 
there is not left to me a place in which to pitch my tepee. 
Go back to your lodges ! I will talk to you." 

So Looking-Glass talked to his people; and again they 
were all unwilling to make a treaty. At last, however, 
most of the Indian chiefs signed the treaty paper. They 
had sold their lands. As yet they had received only a few 
presents; it was years before they received payment, and 
then it was not as promised. 

Thus the council ended. The last feast was held, and 
for the last time the plates were heaped high with roast 
beef and potatoes. The tents were struck. The tepees 
were pulled down. 

So the Indians rode away. All the trails leading out of 
the valley were filled with this wild, picturesque procession. 

[213] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

The horses were still brightly painted, with plumes In their 
tails and manes; the warriors were in scarlet blankets and 
legglns; the squaws and papooses had bright calico skirts 
and gaudy handkerchiefs. 

When the Indians reached their villages, here and there 
In the wide-spreading country, they began to talk about the 
treaty. They did not like being forced to give up their 
lands. They began to buy powder and guns from the 
American and the British traders. After a few months, the 
whole country east of the Cascades was ablaze with an 
Indian war. There was no longer feasting — It was war- 
whoop and tomahawk. 

If we look at things fairly and squarely, we cannot well 
blame those Indian peoples. 

The war lasted less than two years, and there were a 
number of battles at The Dalles and east of the mountains. 
It was not until 1856 that there was any trouble west of 
the mountains, and then the horse Indians came over and 
persuaded the canoe Indians to go on the warpath. But 
there was little fighting, except In the battle of Seattle. 
Yet Americans were shot and scalped wherever they ap- 
peared, while British traders, In their blue coats and brass 
buttons, could go anywhere. For this reason many people 
thought the British were helping the Indians and were 
themselves against the Americans. This Is not true. The 
Indians knew that the British traders did not want their 
lands — that they were traders only. Besides, those traders 
had lived among them for forty years without harming 
them — without driving away the game or making them sell 

[214] 



THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA 

their lands. But the Americans were driving the game 
away, so that the Indians were starving, and they were 
driving the Indians out of their own country. So they were 
friends with the one nation of white men, and bitter ene- 
mies to the other. Nor can we blame them. 

But when the war ended, the white men had their own 
way. The Indians were forced onto reservations, while 
their hunting grounds and their camas grounds were taken 
by the white people. Towns and cities were built up. 
Where are the Indians now? 



[215] 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE 

''TT THOOf Whoo! Whoo-oo!" An officer of the war- 

f f ship Decatur, who was on shore duty at Seattle on 
a very dark night, thought he heard an owl. This was late 
in January, 1856. Blackness lay over the waters of Puget 
Sound; blackness lay over the shore and the near-by for- 
ests. All the people in the little sawmill town of Seattle 
were asleep, except a few anxious ones. Were the Indians 
asleep, or were they planning an attack? No one knew. 
Therefore the officer pricked up his ears and listened, for 
the hooting had come out of the forest on his right. 

"Whoo! Whoof Whoo-00!" That hooting came out 
of the woods on the other side. The officer listened anx- 
iously, for the hooting of an owl was an old Indian signal. 

"Whoo! Whoo! Whoo-oo!^' There it was again, on 
the right-hand side, but nearer than the first hoot. 

"Whoo! Whoo! Whoo-00!" This time It was on the 
left, and also nearer. 

"No owl about that," said the officer to himself. 
"Those owls are Indians. I guess we are In for it." 

One year before. Governor Stevens had made his trea- 
ties with the Puget Sound Indians, and then other treaties 
at the Great Council at Walla Walla. But the Indians 

[216] 



THE BATTLE OF SEATJLE 

were not satisfied with the treaties for several reasons: the 
lands given them were not the best; two or three tribes, 
eternal enemies, had been placed upon the same reserva- 
tion, and that meant constant trouble; and besides, al- 
though the Indians had given up their lands, and the 
white people were building their cabins, fencing the lands, 
cutting down trees, and taking possession, the Great Father 
at Washington had not sent one penny of payment to his 
Indian children in Washington. The Indians thought 
themselves tricked. Indians from other parts of the coun- 
try who happened to come into the west told them that 
the white men always did so. 

Another reason was this : the Indians for forty years had 
been dealing with the Hudson's Bay Company, Dr. 
McLoughlin, the "White-Eagle Chief," and James Doug- 
las, who followed him in the management of the fur trade, 
had power. If they made a promise to the Indians, they 
also kept it. The Indians held them responsible. When 
Governor Stevens made the treaties with the Indians, he 
made the promises. But it was Congress who had to keep 
them. Sometimes Congress was slow in doing this, and 
sometimes did not do it at all. This was something the 
Indians could not understand. 

If they had been left alone, the lazy Puget Sound 
Indians might have complained and been troublesome, but 
perhaps they would not have gone to war. They liked 
better to squat in the bottoms of their canoes and fish; or 
to camp on the shores of Puget Sound and dig clams out 
of the beach; or to catch crabs. But the horse Indians 

[217] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

from east of the mountains were very warlike, and they 
were angry over the treaties. 

All these Indians knew well the difference between the 
"King George men" and the "Boston men." They were 
not angry with the British, who bought their furs. They 
were angry with the Americans who had taken their lands 
and driven the game away. There was danger of Indian 
attack on Seattle; therefore the hooting made the officer 
anxious. 

In October of the year before, Indians had killed sev- 
eral families in the White River Valley, not so very far 
from Seattle. All the loggers and farmers from the 
near-by country had come into Seattle for safety. A block- 
house had been built — just a large log cabin. Women 
and children were to run to it if Indians came. 

After the massacre of October, the Indians seemed to 
have quieted down. Some people scoffed, and said, "Oh, 
there's no danger!" A warship, the Decatur, lay in 
Elliott Bay, and these people even thought It ought to go 
on its cruise. Others said, "Yes, there Is danger. Don't 
you see all these strange Indians about?" 

There were Indeed a great many strange Indians around 
the little milling town. They were tall, well-built, athletic 
Indians, bold and daring in appearance; they were very 
different from the short, bow-legged canoe Indians. Most 
people knew at once that these strange Indians were the 
horse Indians from east of the Cascade Mountains. And 
what were they doing visiting tribes whom, they despised 
as "fish-eaters"? 

[218] 



THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE 

So people waited and waited, some scoffing, and some 
afraid because they believed danger to be near. Marines 
came on shore and sentinels watched during the nights. 
That is how the officer from the Decatur happened to 
hear the hooting of owls in the forest. 

The officer, when he heard the hooting, at once sent 
word to Captain Ganzevoort of the Decatur. He also 
sent word to the settlers. Some of the leading men came 
quickly together for a council; and they asked Curley, a 
scout, to go into the forest and see if the Indians were 
threatening. Curley was thought to be friendly. He was 
gone two hours. When he came back he said there were 
no Indians in the woods. He had actually gone straight 
to an Indian war council. 

Jim, another scout, who really was friendly, came in 
cautiously among the white settlers who were discussing 
the question. Curley watched him closely. When Jim 
had an opportunity, he warned the Americans that the 
Indians had been holding a council, and that they would 
attack Seattle at dawn the next morning. 

Marines from the warship were landed at once. Even 
with the near-by farmers, in the town there were not more 
than one hundred and twenty people there. In Seattle 
Itself there were only twenty houses and a sawmill. 

All night watch was kept. Dawn came, then early 
morning, but no Indians. Some scoffed again. Those who 
had spent the night In the blockhouse went home, for 
Indians almost always attack at dawn, not during the day. 
The settlers went back to their houses and the marines 

[219] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

returned to the Decatur. It was breakfast time and every- 
one, after a sleepless, anxious night, was tired. There 
were no sentinels on duty. 

About eight o'clock, Jim's sister, Nancy, came down 
into the village. Nancy was excited, and was shouting 
something as she waddled along, for she was a very fat 
Indian, 

"What's the matter, Nancy?" called some of the 
settlers. 

" Hi-hi-hiu Klickitats behind Tom Pepper's house," 
screamed the old Indian. " Many, many Indians," was 
what the jargon meant. 

At once word was sent to the Decatur. Captain 
Ganzevoort had had many false alarms; some of his offi- 
cers thought this might be another. 

" Never mind," said the captain, who had not yet had 
his breakfast. " I'd rather be fooled twenty times than be 
caught napping once." He ordered a shell to be aimed 
behind Tom Pepper's house. 

Boom! thundered the big gun. The shell screamed its 
way through the air over the log cabins and exploded with 
a crash behind Tom Pepper's house. 

Warwhoops and yells from a thousand Indians was the 
answer. Then the crash and bang of hundreds of Indian 
guns echoed through the forests, while a shower of whis- 
tling bullets fell like hail among the scurrying settlers. 

For at the first boom of the gun, out from the cabins 
rushed the settlers. Breakfasts were left on the table, 
uneaten or half-eaten, or even on the stoves half-cooked. 

[220] 



THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE 

The settlers were not all even fully dressed. And, curi- 
ously enough, no one was hurt during that wild run be- 
cause the Indians had to stop to reload their guns. 

So began the battle of Seattle. 

The men who had guns went right out into the open — 
into the streets before their houses, hiding behind the 
stumps of great trees left there. The women and children 
were hurried off to a lumber vessel lying In the harbor 
which had come in a few days before to get piles and sawed 
lumber for California. 

Seattle, in those days, was nothing but a few log houses 
scattered In and out among the old stumps between what 
Is now Second Avenue and the waters of Puget Sound. 
When Mr. Yesler built his sawmill, in 1853, he had built 
it on a little peninsula near what is now the foot of Yesler 
Way. The narrow neck of land connecting It with the 
mainland he had widened and heightened by heaps of 
sawdust, making a dry little knoll there. That was all 
there was to the town. 

Up the hill from Second Avenue, much steeper then 
than now, was a dense forest of heavy trees, with dense 
underbrush, and in the forest the Indians were securely 
hidden and quite safe from bullets. 

Yet the battle went on — the steady roar of the cannon 
from the warship, the shrieking of the shells, and the 
crash of their explosion in the woods. And mingled with 
this uproar was the bang of the guns, the wild whoops of 
Indian warriors, and the yelling of the squaws who urged 
them on. 

[221] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Indian bullets cut up the ground around the Americans, 
tore their clothes, cut through their hats, and whistled, 
thick as a swarm of bees, In the air; yet few white men 
were touched. 

The Americans aimed more accurately than the Indians. 
And the shells from the "fire-ship" frightened the warriors 
rather badly. They could not understand how a gun 
could "shoot twice"; that Is, after the roar of leaving the 
gun, the shell exploded with a second crash when It reached 
its mark. An Indian behind a tree had a lock of hair cut 
off by the fragment of a shell. He said afterwards he 
could not understand how a gun could " shoot around the 
corner." 

The fighting and yelling went on. Hundreds of Indians 
just at noon dashed down upon fourteen Americans who 
stood at one point. The white men stood their ground, in 
spite of the yelling redskins who came within a few feet 
of them. And that was the critical moment of the day. 
The Americans refused to be afraid; and that made the 
Indians a little afraid. Had those fourteen run away, the 
settlers would probably have lost the day. 

Meanwhile the settlers fought without having had even 
their breakfast. The Indians did not. They ate the break- 
fasts they found in the log cabins, and then set fire to them. 
The settlers, with guns In their hands, saw the flames and 
smoke of their burning homes. Still they fought on. 

In the afternoon, fewer shots came from the forest. 
At once, as the Indian shooting faded out, the settlers 
feared treachery. They watched the forest more closely 

[222] 



THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE 

than ever. But when evening came, the Indians seemed 
to be disappearing. 

By ten o'clock at night, the battle was over. 

Indians never fight very long at a time. They like to 
make quick dashes. There were so many of them and so 
few of the white people that they felt sure of the quick 
capture of Seattle, so they brought very little food with 
them. Now they sent word that they were going away. 
But one old chief said they would be back "in one moon" 
with twenty thousand warriors and kill off all the white 
men. 

The Indians admitted that twenty-eight braves had been 
killed and eighty wounded. But the settlers and marines 
had only two killed and none wounded. 

During the next few weeks, fearing that the Indians 
might come back again, the sailors pulled up stumps, made 
roads, and cleared the ground around the settlement. 
They built also a strong log-fence — a stockade — around 
part of the settlement. But the warriors did not come 
back, and the next year the war east of the Cascade Moun- 
tains was ended also. 

The settlers of Oregon and of Washington along the 
Columbia River, with regular troops from California, 
fought the Indians east of the Cascades. There were no 
very great battles, but many settlers and soldiers were 
killed; many Indians also. At last peace was declared, 
the Indians quieted down, the treaties were kept by 
Congress, and things were safe for white settlers again. 

[223] 



CHAPTER XXIII 

HOW THE INDIANS LIVED ^ 

UGHl They are fish eaters! Their teeth are full 
of sand! Their teeth are all ground down! 
They are fish eaters! Ugh!" 

Such was the opinion which the horse Indians had of 
the canoe Indians. Of course the canoe Indians ate fish ! 
Why should they live on the water and not do so? They 
lived on Puget Sound, on the Columbia, Willamette, 
Puyallup, Black, Duwamish, and many another river. 
These streams were full of carp, halibut, salmon, white- 
fish, and many other kinds. And the shores of Puget 
Sound were full of clams. At low water the crabs and 
small oysters of the Northwest could be caught. 

But these fish eaters were a lazy set — so it was 
said. 

Do you know how they lived, along the fringes of the 
great forests that bordered the many rivers and Puget 
Sound? For one thing, they lived in winter in houses, 
instead of tepees. All about them were tall trees — tremen- 
dous trees. Some of the hollowed trunks were as large 

^This chapter is necessarily brief, because the various tribes differed 
considerably in their habits, throughout the vast extent of Old Oregon. 
But in the bibliography citations to various works will be found which 
will enable a teacher or reader to get details on any tribe or section. 

[224] 



HOW THE INDIANS LIVED 

as an ordinary-sized room. To build houses, the smaller 
of these trees had to be cut down, yet before the white 
men came, the natives had no tools — no axes, saws, or 
hatchets of any kind. These fish-eating Indians cut their 
trees down by burning them. They set a fire around the 
base of the trunk, but did not allow it to run up the 
tree. Then slowly, after days and nights of burning, 
when the fire had eaten through the tree, it fell. After 
it was down, they cut it into lengths in that same way. 
They usually used cedar trees because the wood was 
softer and the grain split straight. Then, with great toil 
and care, they split the logs into rough, thick boards. 
And with these rough boards they built their houses. 

If you will look at the picture of the Indian house, 
you will see that the floor was lower than the earth out- 
side. Usually it was from two to five feet lower. They 
dug it this way in order to make the cabin drier and 
warmer in winter, as they could not build foundation 
walls. On the little raised platforms around the cabin, 
they laid their beds of mats and skins. The fire was in 
the centre of the house, in a place slightly hollowed out; 
and the boards at the end of the house, or sometimes 
boards in the centre of the roof, were left open so that 
the smoke could get out. There were no windows, and 
only the one door. Often in the cabin long strings of 
fish would hang about, drying in the smoky air. These 
huts were not at all clean. No white person would really 
want to sleep in one, though white people did, when 
visiting the Indians, if the weather was bad. 

[225] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Sometimes three or four families lived in one such 
cabin; sometimes a band of Indians would build a very 
long house, two hundred or even five hundred feet long, 
and sixty or seventy feet wide, where many families could 
live, especially when they were holding a "potlatch" or 
gift festival. For such great houses large tree trunks 
would be used as supports, and these would be carved 
and painted by the Indians into strange, grotesque shapes. 

Cooking in winter was done at the little fire in the 
center of the cabin. But in summer, when the Indians 
roamed about, living in tepees of rushes and bark or 
tule reeds, put up just where they happened to be for 
a few days or weeks, they cooked on the ground out of 
doors. They cooked in — what do you suppose? — in 
baskets and boxes. The Indians cut very neat square or 
oblong boxes from the wood about them, carving them 
often, and in later years the boxes sometimes had a cover. 
Into such a box would be put a fish or other meat to be 
boiled, then cold water. After that, instead of setting the 
box on the fire, as we set a pan or kettle, they put red- 
hot stones into the box, until the water boiled and the fish 
was cooked. Many of these tribes could make baskets of 
spruce roots which were water-tight, and they could cook 
fish or elk meat In such a basket without burning it. 

Indian food was just about the same as that which the 
white people had In early days, except that the settlers 
usually tried to have flour, sugar, and tea and coffee, 
with perhaps salt pork, and these things the Indians did 
not have. But there were deer and elk In the forest, 

[226] 




From an old print 



Indian Houses 




From an old print 



An Indian Canoe Tomb 



HOW THE INDIANS LIVED 

there were wild pigeons, geese, and ducks of all kinds 
on the waters and overhead, clams and crabs In the 
beaches, and many kinds of fish in the waters. In the 
earth grew roots, also, of which the Indians were fond, 
such as the wapato — the little, round, red, bitter Indian 
potato. But the Indians had also our Irish potatoes, 
because the Hudson's Bay Company had taught them to 
plant such, and the red men had great fields of them. 
They ate the root of certain ferns, and the arrowroot, 
but the most interesting root, and one of which they were 
very fond, was the camas root. Camas plants liked soft, 
damp, or wet earth, and in the "camas prairies" all 
through the Northwest, spring brought glorious sheets 
of beautiful blue flowers — blue like the flax — shining 
among the fresh greenness of the spring. These were 
the camas blossoms. 

When, in the fall and summer, the roots were large 
enough to pull, the Indians encamped around these camas 
prairies. Indian women waded out into the soft, wet, 
swampy lands, felt for the roots with their toes, caught 
hold of one, and pulled it up with their toes. At once 
it floated upon the surface of the water, so they could 
pick it up with their hands and toss it into the basket on 
their back, while their busy toes were feeling for another 
root and pulling it up. 

The camas root looked like a round onion, but was 
slightly sweet. They were baked In the earth. Into a 
hole dug not very deep, twigs, branches, and faggots 
were piled, and burned until there was only a bed of 

[227] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

red-hot coals. Over these, damp leaves were placed, 
and then the camas roots were piled In, covered over 
with other damp leaves, then with earth, and a fire built 
on top of it all. In two or three days the camas roots 
were cooked, and would keep for a long time. 

Men and women dressed In blankets, made sometimes 
of elk skins or deer skins or perhaps of a rough woolen 
cloth which a few tribes wove out of the long hair of 
woolly dogs roaming about the camps. There were no 
cats or horses or any animals among these canoe Indians 
except dogs. Short skirts were made by the women out 
of the inner bark of the fir tree, beaten into shreds, 
and then made into heavy string-like cords. These 
were caught together by a belt and used as a short skirt. 
Many of these tribes wore hats, which were woven rushes, 
or roots, conical in shape, and ending in a knob about 
four inches in diameter, something like a Corean hat. 
But nearly always these hats were ornamented. 

Men and women wore all the necklaces and beads 
they could, and often the necklaces were artistic, in a 
crude way. Bears' claws made good necklaces, and pro- 
claimed the bravery of the hunter. Elk teeth necklaces 
were highly valued, as were strings of hiaqiia, the Indian 
money, or beads bought from the traders, or sometimes 
the small joints of birds strung in broad bands on deer 
sinew. Intermixed with bright beads. They also cut clam- 
shells into round disks about as large as one's fingernail, 
making a tiny hole through the center, and stringing these 
also on sinew. These shell necklaces were known as 

[228] 



HOW THE INDIANS LIVED 

wampum, but they were not used as money, as was the 
wampum of the New England states. 

Hiaqua was the name of a shell from one to two inches 
long, curving slightly, hollow, pointed at one end and 
entirely hollow. It was found chiefly among the Queen 
Charlotte's Islands, but sometimes further south on the 
coast. The long hiaqua was of the highest value; the 
shorter was less. It was strung on sinew into lengths 
about as long as one's forearm; that is, two feet or less, 
as it varied slightly. Every thing was priced as being 
worth so many strings of hiaqua, just as we say a thing 
is worth so many dollars. 

Nearly all the canoe Indians believed that a nice, 
round head on a baby was a great disgrace. No one 
but slaves had round heads, so they said, and they tried 
to make their poor little, black-eyed, red-skinned babies 
beautiful by giving them a pointed head. When a new 
baby came, they tied it into a baby board, as all Indian 
mothers do. A baby board was a wooden board, firmly 
wadded with soft moss from the trees. But then these 
canoe Indians fastened a flat piece of board down upon 
the baby's forehead, so as to make a sharp, straight line 
from the nose to the crown of the head. White people 
thought this was dreadful, and after many settlers came 
in the Indians gave it up. 

When an Indian mother was busy with her weaving or 
making baskets or doing other work in which she could sit 
still, she tied the baby board to the branch of a near-by 
tree, and then fastened a piece of sinew so that one end 

[229] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

of it was around her big toe and the other on the baby 
board. Thus she could rock the baby gently by moving 
her foot up and down and not using her hands. She car- 
ried her baby on her back, of course, as all Indian mothers 
do. Only white mothers take their babies in their arms. 

But Indian mothers loved their babies, and in the long 
twilights of that northern country, where the sun sets 
so late and darkness comes so slowly, Indian mothers 
in their huts or tepees would sing to their babies, softly, 
and many a little white child has been sung to sleep, 
in early pioneer days, by the crooning song of an 
Indian mother, not far away, singing to her own baby. 

When their friends and relatives were killed in battle, 
or died, Indians did not bury them in the ground as we 
do. Some tribes wrapped the body in skins, and placed 
it in a canoe, set among tree branches; perhaps, if the 
person was rich or important, another canoe was placed 
upside down over the first one. Other tribes along the Co- 
lumbia had burial grounds. They built tiny sheds in which 
the canoe, or perhaps a carved box, was placed. At the 
head of such graves were the treasures of the person who 
had died, but all carefully broken so no one would steal 
them, or else put in the canoe and the wrapping skins. 

But the most wonderful things about these canoe 
Indians were their canoes. Every canoe was a dugout, 
as it was called — that is, a canoe dug out of the trunk 
of a big tree. Before the traders came with axes and 
hatchets and other metal tools, making a canoe was hard, 
slow work, and yet they made perfect canoes. 

[230] 



HOW THE INDIANS LIVED 

A great tree was selected, one with straight grain, and 
cut down by letting fire eat its way through. Then the 
top was cut off in the same way. From this log they 
were to dig out their canoe. Slow fires were built on 
each side, so as to eat down the big trunk. A full log 
would be round, and would not pass through the water 
easily. The log had to be shaped into a V, so the boat 
would have a keel. As the fires ate slowly into the log, 
skillful workers, watching carefully, chipped away the 
charred wood, so as to get exactly the right shape. It 
took weeks to make such a canoe, and it was hard, tedious 
work. Each tribe had men who were expert canoe 
makers. When the canoe was finished, it was shapely, 
well-balanced, black as ink outside and inside. It was 
rubbed on the outside with reeds and grasses until it 
was as smooth as glass, and without a splinter. Such 
canoes slipped through the water with great speed. 

Then came the ornamentation. Small shells, painted 
red, were used to decorate the inside, and perhaps a row 
would be around the outside also. A headpiece, shaped 
like the head of a bird, and painted perhaps a bright 
green, was fastened into the dugout by deer sinews. 
Then a similar piece, shaped like a bird's tail, was 
fastened on the other end, and also painted. Sometimes 
other queer figures were painted on. With such canoes 
the Indians would face any rough water, fearing nothing; 
and in calm weather they liked to sing, keeping time to 
their music with the dip of their paddles. 

Such were usually the war canoes, which would hold 

[231] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

thirty or forty men, or be used by a great chief, paddled 
by his slaves, when he went to visit another red chief, 
or perhaps some trader. 

The northern Indians, especially those around the 
Queen Charlotte's Islands, were head hunters and can- 
nibals. They had beautiful war canoes, holding often 
seventy men, or more, and moving through the water 
with the speed of an express train. The Puget Sound 
Indians were much afraid of these fierce northern Indians, 
and would flee into the woods whenever they caught sight, 
across the water, of the war canoes. The canoe Indians 
were not great warriors. They really did like to paddle 
about lazily in their canoes, crouched on their short, 
deformed legs — because they squatted so much in these 
canoes their legs became crooked. They liked to paddle 
about in the sunshine, or fish, or camp on the beach and 
dig for clams. It was better for the white settlers that 
they were not warriors, else more blood would have been 
shed in the settlement of the Oregon country. 

Besides these war canoes, there were two other kinds, 
one a small light canoe for fishing, holding only two or 
three persons; the other the family canoe, fairly large 
and wide, so that boxes and clothing and household goods, 
besides persons, could be paddled about when the Indians 
wished to move. 

A "potlatch" was a feast given by some Indian, at 
which he gave away everything he possessed in the world 
to the friends whom he invited. An Indian would send 
out a notice of a potlatch, inviting all his tribe; and 

[232] 



HOW THE INDIANS LIVED 

when they came they spent days in eating elk and deer 
and wapato and camas — until they had eaten everything 
he could supply. Then he gave away his beads, his 
blankets, his cabin (if he had one), all the cooking boxes, 
and his dogs — indeed, everything he had. His friends 
accepted it all. But after that, this man had a right to 
make his home with any one of them, or with many of 
them in turn, until he had gained other necklaces and 
blankets. Because he had given potlatch, no one would 
refuse him anything he asked for, provided that person 
had been invited to the feast. People say now that it 
was a curious Indian form of insurance. 

The horse Indians were of an entirely different type. 
They were bold, daring Indians, often very handsome, 
straight and tall and dignified, living east of the Cascade 
mountains, possessing great herds of horses of which 
they were very proud. A man's wealth was reckoned by 
the number of horses he owned, and these were nearly 
always the "pinto," or painted ponies — the calico ponies. 

These horse Indians lived in tepees, made In winter out 
of elk skin, and in summer, as they moved about, out 
of skins or, perhaps, of tule reeds. They used many 
mats. Many of the tribes, such as the Nez Perces, the 
Walla Wallas, the Cayuses — an Indian pony is called a 
"cayuse" because this tribe owned so many — and other 
tribes of eastern Washington, were of very noble type. 
They were hunting Indians, hunting all through the Cas- 
cade mountains, and through the Snake river valley, even 
over the Rocky mountains out onto the plains where the 

[233] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

buffalo roamed in great herds. They were glad enough, 
too, despite their contempt for canoe Indians, to trade 
with the coast tribes for dried fish, or to put weirs and 
nets in the river to catch the salmon as they came up. 

These Indians had about the same food as the canoe 
Indians, but more meat and less fish; yet they, too, 
ate the camas root and the roots of ferns. They were 
fond of fighting, and were always at war with some other 
tribe, coming home from an expedition beaten, or perhaps 
tossing scalps high on their "coup-sticks." When an 
Indian killed an enemy in battle, the first man to touch 
him with the long stick which each carried, had the best 
right to the scalp, because he had first struck the enemy. 
Coup Is the French word for blow. 

The horse Indians buried their dead, after wrapping 
them in skins, on high platforms, standing alone on a 
plain or perhaps set in the crotch of a tree. There were 
few trees in the lands of the horse Indians, for, in general, 
they lived in the brown, rolling, treeless country east of 
the Cascade mountains. 

Each tribe had different customs and habits, and each 
lived its own life in its own way, until the white man 
came. Then all the old ways began to vanish. After 
several wars against the whites, the Indians went on 
reservations; they learned to use horses and wagons, to 
farm, and many of them today are good farmers. But 
the old days and the old ways are gone. 



[234] 



A Brief Summary 

of the 

History of the Old Oregon Country 

from Original Sources 



APPENDIX 



A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OF THE OLD OREGON COUNTRY 
FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES. 

Up to the time that the British colonists in America, in 1778, 
were engaged in that great war which we know as the Revolution, 
nothing whatever was known of the Northwest Coast of America 
and little indeed even of the Californian coast except that Spanish 
missions had been planted there. 

The expedition headed by Captain Cook — he himself was killed 
at the Sandwich Islands, and never returned to England — published 
a brief one-volume report of the voyage immediately upon its return 
in 1780. A complete three-volume report was published in 1784, 
and while this laid no great stress upon the fur trade, it verified the 
reports of officers and crew, whose interest had been so great that 
after the sale of their furs in China they almost mutinied in their 
determination to go again to the Northwest Coast for furs. 

In 1785 British adventurers entered the trade. First across the 
broad Pacific, from China, crept the sixty-ton Sea Otter, Captain 
Hanna, who returned within six months with twenty thousand dol- 
lars' worth of smooth, beautiful sea-otter skins. That same year other 
adventurers sailed for King George's Sound, or Nootka Sound as 
we know it. Some sailed from London, such as Portlock and Dixon, 
others from the Orient, as did John Meares, and others from conti- 
nental ports, as Barkeley, from Ostend. The problem with all of 
them was the fact that this trade in the Pacific ocean would conflict 
with the chartered monopoly of the East India Company, since the 
best market for the furs was at Canton, China. The fur-traders 
tried to get around this in various ways: some secured licenses from 
the East India Company, which left them without danger, but also 
without freedom in selling their furs, and a consequent loss of profits, 
for all sales to the Chinese were made in the Oriental fashion of 
dickering; others sailed under foreign flags, as Barkeley under the 

[237] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Austrian; but Great Britain could not claim the results of the 
explorations of such, and the Britons themselves did not like it; 
still others, as Meares, used double sets of flags. Meares had both the 
Portuguese and the English flags. Where it was safe, he used the 
English ; where he was likely to encounter the East India Company, 
or any of their officers, he used the Portuguese. 

Not until 1787 did the Americans appear — first Gray and Ken- 
drick, followed almost immediately by Captain Ingraham, of the 
brig Good Hope, and many another. American ships, immediately 
after the Revolution, were lying idle, and as Americans were not 
hampered by the chartered monopoly of the East India Company, and 
the fur trade was profitable, they soon controlled the business to a 
very large extent. The American plan was to sail to the Sandwich 
Islands, cut sandal wood and get fresh vegetables and supplies, go 
up the coast for sea-otter skins, walrus ivory, and seal skins, then go 
over to the South Sea Islands, barter with the natives for edible 
birds' nests for Chinese soups, and other rarities, such as beach-le-mer, 
and sail for China with their varied assortment of products, receiving 
payment in teas, silks, embroideries, and strange China ware, now so 
ordinary to us, but so quaint in those days, with perhaps a few 
Chinese gods to add flavor to the cargo. By 1812 or 1814 the 
British were fairly driven off the Northwest coast. 

Yet it must be noted, that although Americans developed this 
trade, owing to freedom of action which the British traders did not 
possess. Great Britain had scored first in both discovery and explora- 
tion, not only by sea but by land. That is, had scored first after 
Spain — and Spanish explorations were very slightly known, and 
were very superficial. Great Britain, in her trading along the coast, 
following up her discoveries, was soon followed by Americans. On 
land she not only scored first, but was not followed by any nation 
at all. Hearn discovered the Coppermine River in the far north; 
Mackenzie, afterwards Sir Alexander, discovered and explored the 
Peace River in 1789; in 1793 he explored the headwaters of the 
Peace River, and followed down the headwaters of the Frazer, as far 
as the fifty-second parallel, then crossing overland to the Pacific, near 
the mouth of the Bella Coola River. He thought this last river was 
the Columbia, emptying into the ocean about latitude forty-six 
degrees, and named it the Tatooch Tesse, knowing nothing of Gray's 
discovery of the year before. The lower Frazer was later explored 

[238] 



BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES 

by a Briton of that name, but its lower mouth was not discovered 
until 1824, and then by the British, an exploring party of the 
Hudson's Bay Company. 

But Spain, relying upon her first cursory exploration of the coast, 
claimed it all as hers, and hearing in 1789 that fur-traders were 
harboring on the coast, she immediately took prisoner British ships 
and sailors whom she found in Nootka Sound in that }'ear — letting 
Americans go scot free for some reason — and sent them to Mexico. 
The seizure almost caused war between Spain and Great Britain, but 
was ended by the Nootka Sound Convention of 1 790. By that 
convention, England was granted the right to the northern section 
of the coast where she had been trading, Spain to the southern, or 
California Coast, where she had been planting missions, while the 
stretch in between, from about latitude forty-two to forty-nine de- 
grees was declared to be open to traders or settlers of either nation. 

It must be noticed that at the time this division of the Pacific 
Coast was made by these two nations, America made no protest of 
any kind. Indeed, she could not; she had no right, on any grounds, 
to any part of that extensive coast. 

Two years later, through Gray's discovery of the Columbia River 
in 1792, America received, unofficially, a claim to territory drained 
by the river. The extent of the claim would depend upon who dis- 
covered the upper river. America's claim received some emphasis 
eighteen years later, when John Jacob Astor, a fur-trader of New 
York, organized the Pacific Fur Company, and sent two expeditions 
to the mouth of the Columbia. One went overseas in the Tonguin, 
one overland, with terrible sufferings, under Wilson Price Hunt. 
The Tonquin arrived at the Columbia in March, 181 1, and at once 
founded Fort Astoria. The badly managed overland party did not 
arrive until February, 1812. 

Washington Irving's well-known story of Astoiia is fairly correct 
in its story of such events as the founding of Astoria, in the suf- 
ferings of the overland party, and in its purely descriptive work, 
though in the actual building of the fort it follows the blithe French- 
Canadian Franchere, who wrote for his friends at home, and the 
actual difficulties of that feat are underrated. The recital of Alex- 
ander Ross, a somber, literal Scotchman, is much more correct. Both 
accounts are to be found in the Early Western Travels series, edited 
by Reuben Gold Thwaites. 

[239] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

But Washington Irving is not correct in his Astoria on anything 
which touches the rivalry between the British and the Americans for 
the fur trade. He practically worked in collaboration with Astor, 
brings out none of that miserly genius's mistakes, and blames all 
difficulties and the final failure upon the " treachery " of the Ameri- 
can partners. Years of careful study of documents, letters, etc., as well 
as a thorough knowledge of the Columbia River, have convinced the 
writer that there was no treachery in the sale. 

The Nor'Westers, hearing through Montreal of the sailing of the 
Racoon, sloop of war, with the Isaac Todd, an armed supply ship, 
came down the Columbia with song and good cheer from Fort Spo- 
kane, to tell the Astorians of their fate. The Nor'Westers had no 
food and no ammunition, yet encamped just outside Fort Astoria, 
outnumbering the Astorian party. Most of the latter were also 
British subjects and in no mood to fight against their king and country 
for a man from whose mistakes and suspicion they had suffered so 
much, so the American trading party in the fort kept on as good 
terms with the Nor'Westers as possible. 

No furs were bought for nine months from the Indians by the 
Astorians because all trading goods had to be kept to pay the Indians 
for food. Ammunition was suppHed to their British enemies outside, 
and peace was maintained to the credit of both parties. Meanwhile, 
Wilson Price Hunt, Astor's personal agent, was always away when 
most needed, and during these long months of waiting and tension, 
the Astorians sold Fort Astoria, with Fort Okanogan and Fort Spo- 
kane, to their rivals. The bargain was not to be closed until Hunt's 
return, and although he objected at the start to the sale, yet as soon 
as he realized the hopelessness of their position, he assented both to 
the sale and the prices. This is a fact which Irving ignores, if in- 
deed he knew it; but the journal of Alexander Henry, in the vol- 
umes known as the Thompson-Henry Journals, brings out the 
point clearly. 

The Tonquiti had been blown up by the Indians in Clayoquot har- 
bor; the Beaver, by reason of an over-cautious captain, never re- 
turned; the Lark was wrecked in the South Seas; a fourth ship, 
about to be sent out, had to be withheld. So with no ship, and with 
no means of getting their furs across two thousand miles of savage- 
haunted deserts, with trading goods growing scarce, with little am- 
munition and no food except what could be secured from the Indians 

[240] 



BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES 

with payments of trading goods, their position was hopeless. Fran- 
chere's argument of easy escape is childish. No one can stand at the 
mouth of the Columbia today and not understand the hopelessness 
of the American position. 

The price paid by the North West Company for Astor's beaver 
was $2.00 a pound, the usual Canadian or British price. Astor 
claimed he should have received $5.00 per pound, which was the 
highest price paid in New York, as well as by the Chinese in Can- 
ton. Sea otters were sold at a sacrifice also, as well as other furs. 

The prices were as high as could have been obtained anywhere at 
auction. Astor always claimed, on all furs, the highest price paid 
at Canton, China. But the Astorians were three thousand miles 
from China, across a stormy ocean, with no ship, and with a naval 
war in progress. Values at Canton and among the helpless partners 
at Astoria, were necessarily not the same, even omitting the ex- 
pense it would have been to get the furs across the ocean — the 
cost of crews and traders, food, time, etc., and danger of capture as a 
prize — and the claim is absurd. One of the strongest proofs of the 
helplessness of the Americans was that the Canadian traders had not 
only their furs, but their fears. The journal of Alexander Henry, 
the Younger, shows that had an American ship appeared after the 
sale the Canadians could not have saved their furs. 

In a letter to the secretary of state in later years Astor claimed 
that the men had all become naturalized. That was utterly untrue, 
and the statement only made to secure himself from criticism, as he 
knew, when he engaged them and contracted with them, that war 
between the two countries was imminent. Other statements, of 
similar nature, do not bear investigation. 

However, to go back two years, in that first summer of 181 1, 
after the Tonquin had gone north, never to return, a small party went 
up the Columbia to found an interior trading post. This was Fort 
Okanogan. The following summer, 18 12, the Astorians established 
Fort Spokane, immediately adjoining Spokane House, built in 1810 
by the Canadian Company, the North West Company, of Montreal. 
Other explorations, without permanent results, were made by the 
Americans along the Snake River, and in the Willamette Valley. 

On the basis of these two fur posts in the upper country, the 
Americans claimed the entire Oregon Valley, or Columbia Valley, in 
the controversy over the border. Yet the British had been ahead of 

[241] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

the Americans on the upper Columbia. In 1807 David Thompson, 
geographer, astronomer, and fur-trader for the North West Com- 
pany, had crossed the Canadian Rockies, after spending years in bat- 
thng against its difficulties and the cowardice of his voyageurs, who 
were admirable boatmen but no fighters. He explored the sources 
of the Columbia and the country of the Pend d'Oreilles, the Coeur 
d'Alenes, and the Kootenais. He came farther down, and by 18 10 
had founded Spokane House. 

At the close of the war, the Canadian fur-traders were in full 
possession of the trade of Old Oregon, but they had no monopoly as 
against either British or Americans. It was a field for open compe- 
tition and rivalry ; still no Americans came into the country, although 
their ships cruised along the coast, trading in the harbors and inlets 
and rivers, but founding no posts and doing no inland trade. Then, 
in rather spectacular fashion, and only on a rather extraordinary 
interpretation of the Treaty of Ghent, Fort Astoria was restored to 
America in 1818. The diplomatic restoration was verbal, and for 
the fort only, not the country; later, the Americans claimed the 
restoration of the country, and there was no legal paper or docu- 
mentary proof of the fact that only the fort had been restored. As 
a matter of fact, the treaty provided for the return of forts captured 
during the war; Astoria was bought and paid for, even though it 
was through fear of capture. 

But the North West Company did not find the Oregon country 
one of much profit. They were in serious difficulties with the Hud- 
son's Bay Company in the Red River country of Canada; food and 
supplies and men could not be brought readily over that long, long 
trail from Montreal to the Pacific, including the high passes of the 
Canadian Rockies, and it was most expensive to send them from either 
Montreal or from England around the Horn to Oregon. Even 
without that, the trade was not well managed. The traders were 
always in difficulties of one kind or another with the Indians, through 
the lawlessness of the lower classes of servants, which made it difficult 
for small parties to be sent out, and hard to coax the Indians into 
hunting for pelts. The climate of Astoria was not good : the damp- 
ness mildewed the furs and the clothing ; the mud seemed bottomless ; 
the chilly, gray, foggy days depressed the hungry, discontented men. 
Officers of the company at Fort William were almost disposed to 
give up the country, when, in 18 18, they sent out Donald McKenzie 

[242] 



BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES 

with special powers, and he at once changed loss into profit. He had 
been one of Astor's partners and could have given him valuable 
assistance, as he was an experienced trader and possessed of remark- 
able control over the Indians; but Astor's jealousy and suspicions 
gave him no place of authority and was one element in the failure of 
the Astorians. 

Meanwhile, owing to the Red River troubles, Parliament ordered 
the North West Company, of Montreal, and the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany of London to merge. This was done completely in 1821, under 
the name of the older and more famous company, and the fur trade 
of all British North America and Oregon reorganized. 

In 1824, having reorganized the service elsewhere, George Simpson, 
Governor in North America, afterw^ards Sir George, came down the 
Columbia River one rainy November day with the new chief trader, 
later chief factor, Dr. John McLoughlin, an experienced trader, a 
trained physician, and a man also of remarkable character and abili- 
ties. Their immediate decision was to place their central fort in a 
better location, and the prairies opposite the mouth of the Willamette 
River were selected for the new post. The climate was drier and 
sunnier, the soil adapted for the raising of grain and vegetables, the 
fort accessible to their ocean-going ships and yet ninety miles nearer 
the tribes of the upper country than Astoria, or Fort George, as they 
called it after the sale. 

Here, on the upper prairie, nearly a mile from the river, was built 
the first Fort Vancouver, beginning in the late winter of 1824, and 
early spring of 1825. Shortly after, about 1828, finding themselves too 
far from the water, both for personal use as well as shipping, the fort 
was removed to the lower prairie, almost on the river bank, now 
partly occupied by Columbia Barracks, at Vancouver, Washington. 
This second fort was the one so well known to American settlers, 
missionaries, and pioneers. 

Meanwhile, the United States, as shown by diplomatic papers, did 
not intend to give up this country on the western coast. America 
did not expect to occupy it herself, and even so late as 1844, after 
thousands of settlers had gone there, United States senators said on 
the floor of Congress that a separate nation must needs settle there, 
because of the vast stretch of plains and mountains between " the 
Stat'?s " and the Pacific, but it must be one of American form of 
government, American ideals, and American sympathies. California 

[243] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

belonged to Mexico until within a year of the settling of the boundary 
problem. 

Year after year, one Senator or another brought into Congress a 
bill for the " occupation of the Oregon " which received more or less 
discussion, but failed. The Missouri senators were most vigorous in 
this, because Missouri was interested in the fur trade, and their jeal- 
ousy was bitter toward Great Britain's success in getting it. Feeling 
at that time was very bitter towards the British on all points. 
Senator Benton's false statements made in Congress, his charges that 
the British were murdering thousands of American trappers and 
traders, that they were instigating the Indians against the Americans, 
that they were claiming a country which was indisputably American, 
came near bringing America into a third war with Great Britain, and 
almost every statement he made, based on the allegations of jealous 
traders themselves, are now shown by original documents to have 
been entirely false. Senator Lynn tried to carry the Oregon bill, 
because, as his congressional friends frankly admitted, his re-election 
depended upon his efforts in this direction, and he had no other means 
of earning his living than that of senator. He was a likable man, 
breezy and friendly, and his senatorial friends wanted to help him 
earn his living, so many of them, on one occasion, voted for his bill, 
though it was in defiance of the treaty with Great Britain. 

America said " Oregon " in those days and thought of the Columbia 
River and Astoria and Robert Gray, as well as the fur-traders who 
had sailed up and down the coast; Great Britain said " Oregon " and 
thought of Mackenzie and Hearn and Frazer, of Captain Cook and 
Vancouver who explored Puget Sound in 1792, and of Meares and 
Portlock and Dixon. One country thought of the lower one-third, 
the other of the northern two-thirds. Each said " Oregon." The 
geography of the country was little known. No wonder each country 
was surprised at the claims of the other. 

Even before 1822, however, Great Britain gave up all claim to 
Oregon south of the Columbia River. In 1818, at the time that 
Fort Astoria was restored, she had entered into a " joint-occupancy " 
treaty with the United States, by which it was decided to allow 
traders and trappers and settlers and fishing vessels to trade or settle 
in the country, whether British or American, because they could not 
decide the possession of the country. This treaty was for ten years. 
In 1827 it was repeated, this time indefinitely, either country to end 

[244] 



BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES 

it by a year's notice. This cleared things up, because the two other 
countries which had had claims, had surrendered them to the United 
States. Spain surrendered all those under the Nootka Sound Con- 
vention when she sold the Floridas in 1819; and Spain had claimed 
Oregon to the far north, except as limited or left undetermined by 
that Convention. 

France had had rights of contiguity, because Oregon lay Immedi- 
ately west of Louisiana, but those had passed to the United States in 
1803, when she sold old-time Louisiana. Now suddenly, in 1821, 
Russia appeared, claiming Oregon, and the North Pacific as a closed 
sea. This was settled by treaties between Russia and Great Britain, 
and Russia and America, in 1824 and 1825, by which the Czar 
accepted fifty-four degrees and forty minutes as his southern boundary, 
and left Great Britain and America to settle the division of the coast 
between them. 

But it was the Spanish claims (even though limited yet left un- 
settled by the Nootka Sound Convention) sold to the United States, 
and also this treaty with Russia, that led the American people — that 
is, the people as a whole — to believe that American rights 
extended Into the far north. That led, In 1845, to the cry, 
" Fifty-four forty, or fight! " It would have been a most unrighteous 
war for America, for she had no more right, either by discovery, 
exploration, or settlement, to the northern section of the Old Oregon 
country than she had to the British Isles. Her rightful claims were 
all south of the forty-ninth parallel, and the best Informed men knew 
this. Even In 181 8, again in 1824, and again in 1827, America had 
offered Great Britain the boundary line of the forty-ninth parallel 
— just where it Is today — because America wanted the great harbors 
of Puget Sound ; otherwise the forty-eighth parallel might have been 
offered, for we had no real right north of that. The harbors were 
a commercial necessity and the country was determined to have 
them. 

It will be seen, therefore, since Great Britain before 1822 gave up 
all claim to the country south of the Columbia, and America from 
18 18 on until 1845 made no claim to anything north of latitude 
forty-nine degrees, that Oregon never was in danger of being lost, as 
a whole. The only section of the whole country about which there 
was any dispute at all was that south and west of the Columbia River, 
as It winds and turns like a pair of stairs through the state; that is, 

[245] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

the only section at stake was the western half of the present state 
of Washington. 

, The number of men who " saved Oregon " has been increasing as 
/rapidly as the vast amount of furniture which came over in the May- 
/ flower. No one saved Oregon, because Oregon was never in danger 
of being lost. Only half a present-day state was in dispute, and from 
1815 onwards there was no chance of that being given up for the 
statesmen, as their letters and papers show, were determined to have 
those harbors on Puget Sound. The Columbia was a " barred river," 
and unsafe during much of the year. San Francisco harbor belonged 
to Mexico. The tradition of "Whitman saved Oregon" grew out 
of fear. Webster did, at one time, think that he would give up any 
claim to the Puget Sound ports if Mexico could be induced to give 
up the harbor of San Francisco. His opinions on this subject were 
the same after Whitman visited Washington, D. C. — whether he 
saw Webster or not is not the question — as they were before Whit- 
man left Oregon. There was a rumor of a " trade," and popular 
opinion said Webster was planning to trade Oregon for the fishing 
rights of the Northeast Coast. There was no truth in this. 

American fur-traders did not appear in the Oregon country until 
well into the 1820s, when they trapped through the Snake River 
countries, and finally, by 1827, reached Fort Flathead on the north- 
ern Flathead River. Then others came, but only on trading trips. 

Nathaniel J. Wyeth, a Cambridge man, came in 1832, going di- 
rectly to the heart of things by making his way to Fort Vancouver. 
He had high hopes and great enthusiasm, no experience, a small, bor- 
rowed capital, and plans which looked well on paper. He had a 
few followers as inexperienced as himself, some of whom deserted 
him en route, the rest immediately upon their arrival in Oregon. 
Their arrival at Fort Vancouver was late in the fall, a most inter- 
esting story, but never yet published. His ship, due in the Columbia 
River, had been wrecked in the South Seas. He was dependent upon 
the generous hospitality of Dr. McLoughlin, and the fine character 
of both men is shown in the warm friendship between them, lasting 
long after Wyeth 's return to the East, although Wyeth had gone 
into the Oregon country to overturn the great English company if 
he could, or at least to compete for the fur trade. 

Wyeth, as stated, had a small borrowed capital. The Hudson's 
Bay Company was an immensely wealthy corporation, managed on 

£246] 



BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES 

military lines, with a thousand trained men at the posts and on the 
trails between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific Ocean, a company which 
allowed seven years to elapse, in their monetary estimates, between 
the time when trading goods were purchased until the furs bought 
by those goods were in their hands and sold. No individual, without 
knowledge of the trade, or influence with and knowledge of the In- 
dians, could hope to succeed ; yet Wyeth's failure was charged to the 
sinister influence of the Hudson's Bay Company with the Indians, 
although they made no effort to oppose him. Noting his inexperi- 
ence and seeing him foredoomed to failure, as many more experienced 
man had failed, they simply made friends with him and showed 
him every courtesy. 

In 1834 Wyeth returned to the Oregon, with a few men, a little 
experience, borrowed capital, and with plans which still looked well 
on paper. He had with him en 7-oute a large assortment of trading 
goods for American traders in the Rocky Mountains at their annual 
rendezvous — a feature of the fur trade well described in Irving's 
Bonneville. His countrymen refused to accept the goods they had or- 
dered, or to pay for them. Wyeth, thus thrown upon his own re- 
sources, built Fort Hall, near the present Fort Hall, stocked it as best 
he could, left a few men in charge to trade with the Indians, and 
passed on to his English rivals and friends in the Oregon country. 
With him, on this journey, was Jason Lee and his nephew, Daniel 
Lee, the Methodist missionaries who settled immediately in the 
Willamette. 

Wyeth found his ship safely in the Columbia this time, but luck 
was against him. He was too late for the salmon run, and he was 
depending entirely on salmon profits now. Waiting until the next 
year, the run was only half as large as usual, and the indolent In- 
dians had all they could do to catch enough for their own winter 
supplies without bothering with a stranger. The Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany neither raised their prices for fish, nor lowered them on trading 
goods. All documents and even private letters show that they gave 
him a square deal. 

Yet Wyeth's failure was charged by Americans to British efforts 
to hold Oregon for the British crown; though the British crown 
was at that time refusing permission to Canadians to colonize in 
Oregon. 

Meanwhile, the Lees settled in the Willamette Valley, receiving 

[247] 



EARLY, DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

every assistance and kindness from Fort Vancouver, and a few years 
later numerous additions were made to the mission, even though a 
fever of preceding years had almost wiped out the Indians in the val- 
ley. Jason Lee's unpublished defense of himself states clearly that he 
looked upon this body of missionaries as an American colony, in- 
tended to hold the country for America. Good farms received more 
attention from them than actual mission work, yet the mission exer- 
cized a good religious influence, so to speak, was a religious center 
for the white settlers when they came in, and later became an 
academy. 

Politically, however, this mission made much trouble. Jealous of 
the British, fearing lest the attractive country with its open, pleas- 
ant prairies and its forested tracts — for the Willamette is today a 
charming country — should fall to the British, Americans sent peti- 
tion after petition to Congress, urging it to extend the laws of the 
United States over the country, and making many serious misrepre- 
sentations against Fort Vancouver and alleged British ambitions, 
while refraining from acknowledging the cordial and unlimited as- 
sistance in credit and supplies given them by the agents of the British 
Company. They appealed for aid against the Indians " and others 
who would do them harm." 

In 1836 Marcus Whitman, the devoted missionary of Waiilatpu, 
with his charming, devoted wife, with Dr. and Mrs. Spalding, and 
W. H. Gray, a carpenter (the author of perhaps the most malicious 
history ever written), came over the plains, and settled among a 
noble type of Indians near Fort Walla Walla. They devoted them- 
selves to their work, receiving their reward eleven years later in 
death at the hands of the Indians, because the angry tribesmen be- 
lieved themselves about to be wiped out by the disease brought into 
the country by the throngs of immigrants. The massacre came, be 
it noted, after the firm hand of control exercised by the Hudson's 
Bay Company had been lifted by the Treaty of 1846. The Indians 
knew then that the Americans, whom they hated, were to have their 
country. It was Peter Skeen Ogden, chief factor of the Hudson's 
Bay Company, who, taking trading goods from the Company's post 
at Fort Vancouver, went up the Columbia, at the risk of his life, and 
almost single-handed forced the Indians to give up nearly three score 
captives, doomed to death or slavery, ^he letter of acknowledgment 
from the provisional government at Oregon City admits this fact. 

[248] 



BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES 

Meanwhile, the Willamette Valley was being settled. By 1838 
and 1839, American "mountain men" — trappers from the Rocky 
Mountains — with their Indian wives and little half-breed children, 
drifted into the Willamette Valley, for the fur-bearing animals of 
the Rocky Mountains had become practically annihilated. The 
1 840s saw the beginning of a stream of genuine settlers crossing 
the plains, the prairies, and the mountains, with their white-winged 
schooners, their ox-teams tugging at the heavy loads while the black 
ox-goad sang in their ears. 

Many of the newcomers, reaching Oregon late in the fall, had all 
they could do to shelter their heads and feed their families during 
the winter, and but for the generous help given them by the blue- 
ej-ed, rosy-cheeked, white-haired man in charge of Fort Vancouver, 
they could not have survived their first few months of hardship in 
this chilly, rainy climate, after the strain of long months in crossing 
the continent. Many did go on to the Sandwich Islands and to Cali- 
fornia, some having changed their route while crossing the plains, 
and others drifted down from the north dissatisfied with the more 
gloomy northern climate. The ill reports of Oregon brought down 
into California by hundreds of these immigrants, reaching the ears 
of British consuls and vice-consuls there, as well as in the Sandwich 
Islands — which was the rendezvous for every ship in the Pacific and 
a general center of gossip — led to representations to the British 
Foreign Office by their own subordinates that Oregon was not worth 
fighting for, that it was better to give up part of the country than 
to quarrel over it. 

Many of these immigrants in the Willamette claimed that they 
came to " save Oregon " — came because of their love for their native 
land. Knowing before they came that they could get a mile square 
of good farming land for the asking, perhaps with some of them the 
word "native" might be left out. Such a man as Peter H. Burnett, 
for instance, one of the finest characters who came to Oregon, ad- 
mitted frankly he came for the land. He was heavily in debt in Mis- 
souri, his family shaking with chills and fever, there was no trade, 
and his only chance for getting financially on his feet again was his 
arrangement with his creditors that he be allowed to come to Ore- 
gon and take up all the land allowed for himself, his wife, and each 
of his several children — a tremendous tract of fertile country to be 
had simply for the taking. 

[249] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Days were rough, as in all pioneer countries, but not nearly so 
rough as they were in many of the western states. Still, by 1843, 
the needs of laws were apparent and a provisional government was 
formed by the Americans, and the laws of Iowa used as a basis, until 
some settlement should be made as to the border. Two years later, 
because of the encroachments and difficulties created by a lawless 
type of settler against the Hudson's Bay Company, the provisional 
government was re-organized so that the EngHsh Company might 
join in with them without losing nationality, or affecting their rights 
as Englishmen. This gave the Company a certain protection, but 
gave also to the Americans the force of the Company's influence and 
power, both in connection with their control over the Indians — as the 
Americans had antagonized the natives — and their trade with their 
sj'stem of trading posts, as well as the fact that Fort Vancouver was a 
necessity to the Americans for supplies and protection. 

Among these early settlers were deserters from whalers, law- 
breakers and fugitives from justice, old fur trappers who hated the 
British Company, hated the red flag of Britain's commerce which 
flew over that wooden-wailed fort, with the white, half monogram 
J^ (^ on the lower edge of the red folds. Such men as these threat- 
ened to drive out every man in the valley who had an Indian wife — 
some Americans, but chiefly French-Canadians, old servants of the 
Company who had tilled their farms for years and had comfortable 
houses — and threatened also to burn down Fort Vancouver. Some 
were adventurers from the Sandwich Islands. And with them all 
was a goodly number of the finest class of American pioneers — men 
determined, honest, hard-working, law-abiding, good husbands and 
good fathers, seeking better opportunities for themselves and better 
futures for their children. Such men as these gave the predominant 
stamp to the country, and by their industry developed it so that it has 
grown at a marvelous pace, aided by its attractive scenery and de- 
lightful climate — developed it so that a few years later other de- 
sirable men, bankers, business men, the professional classes who lacked 
the liking for the rough edge of a pioneer's life, followed in their 
footsteps and built up the country. Today this Old Oregon coun- 
try makes up the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Northwest- 
ern Montana, and all of British Columbia. 

Of all the characters which stand out in the history of early Ore- 
gon, for nobility and grandeur, the most striking is that of Dr. John 

[250] 



BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES 

McLoughlin; "the father of Oregon," as he is now called, and cor- 
rectly so. Sj'mpathj^ food, clothing, seeds, ploughs, and cattle to 
draw the ploughs, as well as supplies of every sort were sold to the 
Americans at the regular Company prices over the first cost in Lon- 
don. Credit was long; it took years to collect some of the debts, 
even of honest men. Most of the Americans repaid him ; others did 
not. McLoughlin supplied all work possible for the Americans, 
even glutting the shingle market at the Sandwich Islands in his ef- 
forts to help them. He was an old man when Americans knew him, 
imperious as his position demanded, for he kept in order, in a wild, 
uncivilized country, from five hundred to a thousand subordinates, 
many of them of the roughest type, besides controlling and holding 
in check eighty thousand Indians, some of whom were cannibals. 
Since 1829 he had picked out the falls of the Willamette as a fu- 
ture home, when old age should make retirement advisable — picked 
it out the year that Etienne Lucier, the first to settle there, was al- 
lowed to make his home in that valley. 

The Company were under bonds to return their men to their 
homes, or to the civilized world, when their engagements expired ; 
so the Company, in order to allow these men to settle in a comfort- 
able climate, where farming was possible and they could provide for 
their families, were forced to keep the men on their rolls, though 
without pay. This point led to much misrepresentation by the Amer- 
icans. McLoughlin himself dreaded a possible return to the rigors 
of the climate of eastern Canada. That the hatred and misjudg- 
ment of Americans should have embittered his later years is a cause 
for keen regret, for his friendship for Americans was generous and 
genuine. His loss of his position was not due, as is usually stated, 
to his refusal to drive the Americans out of the country. It was due 
to differences of business judgment between him and Sir George 
Simpson, the Governor in North America, and to McLoughlin's per- 
sonal bitterness towards Sir George for the attitude of the latter 
toward the death of young John McLoughlin, who was killed by 
his men at the fur post at Stikene, now Alaska. It was a disgrace 
to the Company as Sir George saw it; but it was a terrible blow to 
the father.* 

This summary is brief indeed, but the history of Oregon is the 



* For details of these differences, see "Dr. McLouglilln's last letter," American 
Historical Review, October, 1915. 



[251] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

most romantic history of any section of the United States, and the 
fascination of it lies in the fact that the old history still echoes 
through the forests and along the broad streams of the country, and 
gleams in the snowy peaks. The grandchildren of many a man who 
helped to settle the Old Oregon country are still young people, barely 
out of school. Some of a younger generation are still mere children 
in school. It is but right they should know its early history. 




[252] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of the Northwest Coast. 

2 vols. San Francisco, 1884. 

A very comprehensive history of the Pacific Northwest, from the days of 
its imaginary geography to the end of joint occupation in 1846. Important for 
historical work on account of footnotes and citations of authorities, but pre- 
supposes a fair knowledge of the history. A bibliography of seventeen pages 
contains references to many manuscripts as well as to rare books. 

History of Oregon. 2 vols. San Francisco, 1888. 

Vol. I covers 1834-1848, and vol. 2, 1848-1888. The first volume, beginning 
with the period just prior to the coming of the missionaries, covers in detail 
the events of the next fourteen years, both secular and clerical. The founding 
of all of the early missions in Old Oregon, Catholic and Protestant, is given 
in detail. The second volume, beginning with the close of the joint occupa- 
tion, covers more narrowly the history of the present Oregon. 

Native Races of the Pacific States of North America. 5 vols. 
San Francisco. 

Vol. I, wild tribes; vol. 2, civilized nations; vol. 3, myths and languages; 
vol. 4, antiquities; vol. 5, primitive history. 

Volumes i and 3 are of value in the study of the tribes on the Columbia 
and along the Pacific coast. Chapters 2 to 5 of vol. 3 give brief summaries 
of a number of Northwestern myths and legends. 

Washington, Idaho, and Montana, 1 845-1 889. San Francisco, 
1890. 

A brief history of Washington, beginning with the end of joint occupa- 
tion in 1846, and ending with statehood in 1889. The history of Washington 
comprises 392 pages, but only 300 are history proper. Footnotes, citations, 
and a bibliography of ten pages make it of unusual value to the historian. 

Bourne, Edward Gaylord. Essays in Historical Criticism. 

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1901. 

The first essay, covering pages 3-109, is entitled "The Legend of Marcus 
Whitman." In it are given parallel accounts of the Spalding and the Gray 
narratives so far as they touch upon the purpose of Whitman's famous ride. 
It is a very clear statement of the anti-Whitman side. 

[253] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Cox, Ross. Adventures on the Columbia River: A Narrative of 
Six Years' Residence on the Western Side of the Rocky 
Mountains. 

This gives much about the life of the Indian tribes, but is not suitable 
reading for any but adults. 

Denny, Arthur A. Pioneer Days on Puget Sound. Alice Harri- 

man Co., Seattle, 1908. 103 pp. $2.00. 

Incidents of early pioneer life, especially the founding of Seattle and the 
settlement on the Sound. Especially useful for early Seattle history. The 
present edition is a reprint. 

Denny, Emily Inez. Blazing the Way: True Stories, Songs, and 
Sketches of Puget Sound and Other Pioneers. Rainier Printing 
Co., Seattle, 1909. 504 pp. $2.50. 

Home life in the earliest days on the Sound, as related by the daughter of 
one of the pioneers who founded Seattle. The author is not a trained writer, 
but the book contains details which are of real value as a record of the early 
days. 

More than half the book is given up to a biographical account of David 
T. Denny. 

Eells, Rev. Myron. Marcus Whitman, Pathfinder and Patriot. 
Alice Harriman Co., Seattle, 1909. 347 pp. $2.50. 

This is distinctly the best book on the pro-Whitman side. The tone is 
moderate and Dr. Eells does not hesitate to state that many assertions made 
by both Spalding and Gray are incorrect. The author is the son of the Rev. 
Gushing Eells, who, as head of the Spokane mission, knew Whitman person- 
ally and worked with him in the mission field. 

The descriptions given in Mrs. Whitman's letters of the crossing of the 
continent and the Green River rendezvous are unusually good. The religious 
side is rather prominent, but the book is entertaining. The type is large. The 
index is inadequate. 

Franchere, Gabriel. Voyage to the Northwest Coast, 1811-1814. 
Reprinted in Thwaites' Early Western Travels. 

Is a cheery, bright account, written for friends, of the founding of 
Astoria, its sale, and the author's journey home. He was in Oregon only 
with the Astorians. 

HoLMAN, Frederick V. Dr. John McLoughlin, the Father of 
Oregon. A. H. Clark Co., Cleveland, 1907. 286 pp. $2.50. 
A description of Fort Vancouver, the habits of life there, but especially a 
careful study of Dr. McLoughlin and his influence over the Indians and his 
relation to the development of Old Oregon. The biographical section occupies 
little more than half the book, the remainder being an appendix of illustrative 
documents. Good index. 

The book is carefully written, but the description of life at old Fort Van- 
couver is rather colorless. It could well be supplemented by Mrs. Victor's 
River of the West. 

[254] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Howard, Major O. O. Nez Perce Joseph: An Account of his 
Ancestors, his Lands, his Confederates, his Enemies, his Murders, 
his War, his Pursuit, and Capture. Lee & Shepherd, Boston, 
1 88 1. 274 pp. $2.50. 
The sub-title covers the scope of the book, which is written with crisp- 

ness and force. Much attention, of course, is paid to the Nez Perce war and 

the military operations. There is no index, but the chapter headings are 

detailed. 

Humphrey, Seth K. The Indian Dispossessed. Little, Brown & 
Co., Boston, 1906. Revised edition. 297 pp. $1.50. 

A warm defense of the red man and a criticism of the government's 
treatment of its wards, not only in putting them upon reservations, with 
defective management, but in shifting them from one reservation to another 
to meet the demands of the white settlers. Pays especial attention to the 
Umatillas, the Nez Perces, and the Flatheads of the Bitter Root Valley. 

Irving, Washington, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville. 
Hudson edition. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 517 pp. $1.50. 

A picturesque but reliable account of the life of trappers and traders 
when the fur trade was at its height. The edition above is a very service- 
able one. 

Astoria: Or Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Moun- 
tains. Hudson edition. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 676 pp. 
$1.50, 
A charmingly written account of fur trading days in the Pacific North- 
west, but especially of the Astor expeditions by sea and overland. Both 
Astoria and the Adventures of Captain Bonne'ville are now regarded as not 
overdrawn. Recent study of northwestern history discredits the charges 
formerly made, that Irving's writings on the Northwest are somewhat 
fanciful. 

Fur Traders of the Columbia River and the Rocky Mountains. 
G. P. Putnam's Sons. 90c. 

This is really an abridgment of Astoria and Captain Bonnei'ille, told in 
one straight story for children. It gains in directness by the abridgment, 
but loses in charm of style. 

JuDSON, Katharine B., comp. Myths and Legends of the Pacific 
Northwest, Especially of Pf^ashington and Oregon. 40 illustra- 
tions. A. C. McClurg & Co. $1.50. 

Fifty-two legends, including the creation of the world, the origin of 
daylight, theft of fire, the Columbia River and the bridge of the gods, 
Takhoma, the chinook wind, and legends of coyote and the salmon. The 
legends are authentic, many being direct translations from the Indian by 
government ethnologists. 

[255] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Subject Index to the History of the Pacific 'Northwest and Alaska, 
as Found in the United States Gover7i?nent Documents, 
Congressional Series, in the American State Papers, and in 
Other Documents, 1789 to 1 88 1. Washington State 
Library, Olympia, Wash. 

Besides being an index to documents purely political, the cross refer- 
ences make this index important on economic and social materials. Under 
"Indians, Manners and Customs," will be found much of value on any part 
of the Oregon country. 

Laut, Agnes C. The Story of the Trapper. D. Appleton & Co., 
New York, 1902. 284 pp. $1.25. 

Miss Laut gives a vivid picture of the life and the perils of the trappers, 
with numerous incidents. The book is well worth reading and is, in general, 
accurate, but trappers have bitterly resented the characterization she has 
given them as lawless and immoral. Part of this difference of opinion is due 
to the fact that the author and the trappers represent two stages of civiliza- 
tion, and part to the fact that she has stated the case against the trappers 
rather too strongly. 

Vikings of the Pacific: The Adventures of the Explorers who 
Came fro?n the West, Eastward. The Macmillan Com- 
pany, 1905. 368 pp. $2.00. 

Part I, the early Russian explorers beginning with Behring, who dis- 
covered and explored the northern Pacific coast to 54' 40". 

Fart 2, The American and English explorers; Drake, Cook, Gray, Led- 
yard, and Vancouver. 

Part 3, The fur trade, especially as carried on by the Russians. 

Large type, attractive make-up, and entertaining reading. The book as 
a whole is not reliable, because the imaginative touch which Miss Laut adds 
destroys its value as authentic history. The index is satisfactory. 

Lewis, Albert Buell. Tribes of the Columbia Valley and the 
Coast of Washington and Oregon. Vol. I, part 2, Memoirs of 
the American Anthropological Association. New Era Printing 
Co., Lancaster, Pa., 1906. 204 pp. 65c, paper. 

Takes up the life and customs of the "canoe Indians" almost exclusively. 
The treatment is brief but authoritative. The bibliography, however, 
includes works on the Indians of Northern California. 

Lewis, William, and Clark, Merriwether. Journals. History 
of an Expedition . ... to the Source of the Missouri River, 
Thence Across the Rocky Motintains and Down the Columbia 
River to the Pacific Ocean During the Years 1804-1806. 
The best of the cheaper editions is probably the 3-volume edition of 

A. S. Barnes & Co., New York, 1904, at $1.00 each. This is edited by John 

Bach McMaster. 

The most serviceable edition Is probably that edited by James K. Hosmer, 

in z volumes, published by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1902, $3.cx}. The 

[256] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

type IS large, the paper of good quality, and the detailed headings to each 
chapter are very useful. 

The most scholarly edition, with the original spelling, is the 4-volume 
edition edited by Dr. Elliott Coues, published by Frances P. Harper, New 
York, 1883, at $12.50. Few small libraries, however, would find this a 
practicable edition. 

Lord, William Rogers. A First Book Upon the Birds of Oregon 
and Washington. Revised edition. J. K. Gill Co., Portland, 
Ore. 297 pp. 75c. 

Intended primarily for children and young people, but would do very 
good service for any one just beginning to study the birds of this section. 
The photographic illustrations are of little value. The type is good and die 
book small enough to slip into the pocket. 

Lyman, William D. The Columbia River; Its History, its Myths, 
its Scenery, and its Commerce. With 80 illustrations and a map. 
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1909. 409 pp. $3.50. 

A description of "the land where the river flows," followed by early 
explorations, Indian legends, the fur traders, and the occupation of Old 
Oregon. Part II is a pleasing description of delightful exploring and 
camping trips. 

The book is well printed and well illustrated, with good index. 

The author is professor at Whitman College, and has spent his life along 
the Columbia River. 

Marshall, William I. History vs. the Whitman-Saved-Oregon 

Story. Three essays toivard a true history of the acquisition of 

the Old Oregon territory. Blakeley Printing Co., Chicago, 1902. 

236 pp. 50c cloth, 25c paper. 

Chapter i, "Strange Treatment of Original Resources" (reprinted from 
Oregonian of September 3, 1902), is a very critical review of Mowry's Marcus 
Whitman and tlie Early Days of Oregon. The review includes also a 
thorough discussion of original sources. 

Chapter 2, "Dr. Eells' Search {}) for Truth," being a review of Myron 
Eells' reply to chapter i, as published in the Oregonian. 

Chapter 3 is a discussion of Professor Bourne's paper. 

Mr. Marshall was the first man to attack the Whitman-saved-Oregon 
story, by comparing the facts as stated by Spalding and Gray with the 
voluminous correspondence of Whitman himself, Mrs. Whitman, and others. 
He had himself believed the story, he states, and delivered many lectures in 
high praise of Whitman's heroic ride to save Oregon. 

This book is very necessary to any library for its thorough discussion of 
the question. 

The Acquisition of Oregon. 

This is carefully worked out, not only to give the history of Oregon, 
but to disprove the Whitman-saved-Oregon myth. It is the best book on the 
anti-Whitman side as Eells' work is the best pro-Whitman work. Both are 
fairly good Oregon histories as taken from secondary sources and imperfect 

[257] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

and biased primary sources. Neither one does justice to the Hudson Bay 
Company, and neither pays any attention to the British side of the Oregon 
controversy. 

Mason, Otis T. Basket Work of North American Aborigines. 
National Museum Report, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 
D.C., 1894. 

This is the standard work on basketry. 

Cradles of the North American Aborigines; Head-flattening in 
Oregon; Cradles of Oregon and Alaska. National Musemn 
Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1887. 

Human Beasts of Burden; Yokes and Carrying Baskets of the 
Oregon Country and Alaska. National Museum Report, 
Smithsonian Institution, 1887. 

Meeker, Ezra. Pioneer Reminiscences of Puget Sound. The 
Tragedy of Leschi. Seattle, 1909. 840 pp. 

Personal memories of early experiences by one who came over the Trail 
in 1853, settling first in the forests on the Columbia River and later on Puget 
Sound. The chapter, "Cruise on Puget Sound," gives a very good description 
of the Sound, alive with Indian canoes, while Olympia was hardly more 
than a name, Tacoma an unnamed camping ground, and Seattle a few log 
cabins clustered around a sawmill. A good description of a trip through 
the Nachess Pass is given. 

The account given of the Indian wars of 1855-56 is biased, the blame 
for the war being shouldered upon Governor Stevens. The attitude of the 
writer toward the Indians, and especially toward Leschi, on the other hand, 
is unusually sympathetic. 

C. B. Bagley's "In the Beginning" occupies the last 100 pages. 

Parkman, Francis. The Oregon Trail. Illustrated by Frederic 
Remington. Little, Brown & Co., 1906. 411 pp. $2.00. 

As Parkman never crossed the Rocky Mountains, his vivid descriptions 
end with Fort Bent, yet a knowledge of the Trail as it wound over the plains 
is essential to a knowledge of the history of the Northwest. For charm of 
style and beauty of description, the volume can never be equalled, since the 
old days of the Trail have passed away. The book is popular with boys. 
There are many editions, from 75c upwards, but the one mentioned above is 
very attractive and a serviceable library edition. 

Phelps, Rear-Admiral T. S. Reminiscences of Seattle During the 
Indian War of 1855-56. Alice Harriman Co., 1908. 48 pp. 6oc. 
An officer on the Decatur during the Indian attack, Admiral Phelps gives 
a detailed description of the entire affair. Originally published in the United- 
States Magazine, this account of the battle seems to have been the basis for 
nearly all others. 

[258] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Prosch, Charles. Rem'miscences of Washington Territory; Scenes, 
IncidcntSj and Reflections of the Pioneer Period on Puget Sound. 
Seattle, 1904. 123 pp. 

This book of reminiscences, like others, will be of increasing value as 
time passes, if the early history of the Northwest is to be preserved. This 
volume is of especial interest to Seattle and other cities on the Sound. 

Ross, Alexander. Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon 
or Columbia River, 1810-1813. 

Reprinted in Thwaite's Early Western Travels. Is a sombre and literal 
account, probably more accurate than Franchere's, and fully as interesting, 
although less blythe. 

ScHAFER, Joseph. History of the Pacific Northwest. The Mac- 
millan Company, 1905. 288 pp. $1.25. 

A very readable book, of attractive make-up, with large type and many 
illustrations. Brief but reliable, and one of the best books for general use. 

Spinden, Herbert J. The Nez Perce Indians. Vol. 2, part 3, 
Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association. Lan- 
caster, Pa, 1908. 274 pp. 65c paper. 

A monograph on this tribe which treats of their life and customs, 
weapons, ornaments, basketry, etc. The book is authoritative and of especial 
value in historical work. Illustrations are chiefly of utensils, basketry designs, 
and ornaments. Clear type and heavy paper, 

Stevens, Hazard. Life of Isaac I. Stevens. Houghton Mifflin 
Company, 1900. 2 vols. $5,00. 

Not only a well-written story of the life of Governor Stevens, but a very 
necessary book for any study of the Indian wars in Washington. Is of 
especial importance on account of the councils, particularly the great Walla 
Walla council incident to the signing of the treaties of 1855. Entertaining 
also in its bits of description of the primitiveness of official life in Washington, 
A very value reference book for Washington libraries. 

SuDWORTH, George B, Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope. Wash- 
ington, 1908, 441 pp. 65c paper. Address, Superintendent of 
Documents, 

The usual publisher's price for this beautifully illustrated book would 
probably have been $3.50 or more. The descriptions are clear, the locations 
are given exactly. Through the "Index of Common and Scientific Names" 
any tree may be identified. The book is well sewn, opens flat, but will need 
more protection than the paper cover. It is a book which every library can 
afford and will need. 

[259] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 

Victor, Mrs. Frances F. River of the West; Life and Adventures 

in the Rocky Mountains and Oregon. 1870. 

A biography of Joseph Meek, one of the most picturesque of the 
"mountain men." Meek wandered from the great plains to the coast, and 
many of the stories of the old trapper's fights with Blackfeet and Shoshones 
are told in his own words. The book is now out of print, but worth securing 
for the graphic pictures of frontier and pioneer life. 

The Early Indian Wars of Oregon, Compiled from Oregon 
Archives and Other Original Sources, with Muster Rolls. State 
printer, Salem, Ore., 1894. 700 pp. 

Mrs. Victor was commissioned by the legislature of Oregon with the 
recording of the early wars in Old Oregon. The book covers the Cayuse 
war, the Rogue River wars, and the Yakima war. Footnotes and citations 
are given. Personal experiences are given to the exclusion of purely military 
tactics, and the book gains thereby in human interest. Chapter headings are 
analyzed, and the index is very complete. 

Wheeler, Olin D. The Trail of Leivis and Clark. With 200 
illustrations. 2 vols. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904. $6.00. 

A most entertaining account of a journey over the trail of Lewis and 
Clark one hundred years later. Quotations from the journals of the famous 
expedition, location of the trails and camps, with careful photographic work, 
make these volumes also of great value. The type is large, the paper of good 
qualit3% and the illustrations clear. The index is very complete and well 
analyzed. 

WiNTHROP, Theodore. The Canoe and the Saddle. Dodd, Mead 
& Co., New York. 375 pp. $1.50. 

A whimsical, entertaining account of a trip made in 1853 by canoe and 
horseback, from Port Townsend, on Puget Sound, along the Columbia and 
across the mountains. The hardships and perils of the trip are almost con- 
cealed by the pervading humor of the author, who occasionally had to trust 
to his horse's heels and his Colt revolver for his personal safety. 

Winthrop is credited with having first learned from the natives the 
Indian name for the Sound, and for the doubly-named mountain — Whulge, 
and Takhoma. 



[260] 



INDEX 



Alki Point, i88, 193 

America, British ship, 162, 163 

Apples, the first in the Oregon coun- 
try, 110-112 

Astor, John Jacob, 50, 239 

Astoria, building of the post, 47-57; 
abandoned, 96; sold to North West 
Company, 239, 240; restored to 
United States, 242 

Astorians, and Okanogan, 56, 60; and 
Fort Spokane, 66 

Barkeley, Captain, 16, 237 
Beaver, arrives at Astoria, 54 
Bellingham, 183 
Bitter Root Mountains, 38, 44 
Blue Mountains, 138, 139 
Bonneville, Irving's, 247 
"Brigade of Boats," 72; annual ar- 
rival at Fort Vancouver, 101-104 

Catlin, the artist, and prairie fire, 
134-136 

Children, life of the pioneer, 197-204 

Clarke, of the Astoria Company, 66 

Coal, discovery of, 183 

Columbia, Kendrick's and Gray's 
ship, 19, 25; first across the 
Columbia River bar, 25-30 

Columbia River, bar, 18, 42, 47; bar 
crossed by Captain Gray, 25-30; 
river, 29, 30, 32, 40, 45, 60; and 
Fort Vancouver, 97-101 ; and set- 
tlers, 141; forests of the, 163; lum- 
bering on, 181 

Cook, Captain, adventures along the 
Oregon coast, 5-12, 27, 237 

Dalles, The, 60, 95, 141 
Decatur, warship, 218 
Denny, David, pioneer, 188, 189 
Discovery, Captain Cook's ship, 5 



Early settlers, tj'pes of, 250 
Early Western Travels, 239 



"Fifty-four-forty or fight," 156, 245 

First white man's ship, 1-4 

Franchere, story of the Northwest, 
239 

Furs, secured by Captain Cook's men, 
9, 10; a race for, 66-71; and cli- 
mate, 96; early prices for, 241 

Fur-trading, 11, 13, 17, 97; "Brigade 
of Boats" and, 101-104; mountain 
trade ended, 130; beginnings of, 
237, 238; and Indians, 243 

Ganzevoort, Captain, of the Decatur, 

219 
George, Fort, 72, 83 
Gold, discovery in California, 168, 

178 ; In Oregon, 184 
Good Hope, brig, 238 
Gordon, Captain, of the America, 

162, 163 
Gray, Captain Robert, 12; sails over 

the Columbia River bar, 19, 25-30, 

44, 47. 144,. 238, 239 
Great Britain, opinion of Oregon, 

165, 249; gives up claims to Ore- 
gon, 244, 245 

Hall, Fort, 116, 117, 127, 137 

Hiaqua shell, 228, 229 

"Home ship" from England, arrival 

at Fort Vancouver, 104 
Hudson's Bay Company, 96, 147, 149; 

and the Indians, 217 

Immigrants, coming of the, 95; expe- 
riences on the Nachess Pass route, 
167-177, 249 

Indians, Walla Walla treaty with, 
205-215; how they lived, 224-234 

Indian war, 214; battle of Seattle, 
216-223 

Ingraham, Captain, of the Good Hope, 
238 

Irving, Washington, Astoria, 239, 
240; Bonneville, 247 



[261] 



EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 



Joint Occupancy Treaty of 1818, 147, 
151, 159, 244 

Kendrick, Captain John, of the Co- 
lumbia, and Lady tVashington, 19, 
25, 238 

Lady Washinglon, Gray's and Ken- 

drick's ship, 19, 25 
Laramie, Fort, 127 
Lee, Rev. Daniel, 123, 149 
Lee, Rev. Jason, 123, 149, 248 
Lewis and Clark Expedition, 30, 31- 

46, 145 
Lumbering in Oregon, 164, 165, 168, 

178, 179, 181, 188 

McDougall, Duncan, 52, 54, 55 

McKenzie, Alexander, fur trader, 144 

McKenzie, Donald, of the North West 
Company, 83, 96, 243 

McLoughlin, Dr. John, takes charge 
of Oregon Country fur trade, 97- 
109, 243 ; life at Fort Vancouver, 
104-109, iii; welcomes mission- 
aries, 122, and immigrants, 142; 
and the provisional government, 
158 ; dealings with the Indians, 217 ; 
character and work, 250, 251 

Meares, Captain John, 11, at Nootka 
Sound, 13-21, 22, 27, 32, 237, 238 

Meek, Jo, trapper, 130 

Metal, value to Indians, 3, 9 

Missionaries, coming of the, 94; ad- 
ventures of the Whitmans, 1 13-126 

Missouri, Great Falls of the, 33; the 
river, 32, 33, 36 

Modeste, English warship, 160, 161 

Nachess Pass, immigrant adventures 
by the, iS-j-ijj 

Nootka Sound, 7, 11, 13, 32; Conven- 
tion, 239, 245 

Northivest America, launching of the, 
19-21, 22, 25 

Northwest Coast, early discoveries, 
238 

North West Company, 56, 58, 59, 96, 
147; buys Astoria, 240, 241 ; merges 
with the Hudson's Bay Company, 
243 



Ogden, Peter Skeen, rescues whites 
from Indians, 125, 248 



Okanogan, Fort, 56, 60, 241 

Olympia, 185, 186 

Oregon, of the early days, 32, 145, 
154; who owned, 143-166; Joint 
Occupancy Treaty, 147, 151, 159; 
American Provisional Government, 
153, 158; and Whitman, 154, 155; 
and Webster, 155, 156; reputation 
in England, 165, 249; boundary line 
settlement, 161, 162, 166, 167; lum- 
bering in, 164, 165, 168; beginning 
of cities, 178-187; pioneer explor- 
ers, 188-196; life of the pioneer 
children, 197-204; bills for occupa- 
tion of, 244, 248 ; indeterminate 
boundaries of, 244; Spanish and 
Russian claims, 245 

Oregon City, 179 

Oregon Trail, the, 124, 127-142 

Pacific Fur Company, 50 

Pioneer, settlers, 150-152; experi- 
ences, 167-177, 188-196, 200, 201; 
children, 197-204 

Portland, 180, 181 

'Totlatch," Indian custom, 232, 233 

Prairie fire, 133-136 

Provisional government in Oregon, 
158, 250 

Puget Sound country, 167; timber, 
182; first treaties, 205; productions, 
205, 206; Indians of, 217 

Resolution, Captain Cook's ship, 5 

Rio San Roque, 6 

"River of the West," 7, 28, 40 

Rocky Mountains, 38, 116 

Ross, Alexander, with the Astorians, 

50; adventures at Okanogan, 58-65 ; 

with North West Company, 72 ; 

story of the Northwest, 239 
Russia's claim to Oregon, 245 

Sacajawea, the "Bird Woman," 31, 

36, 45 
Sandwich Islands, 164, 178, 238 
San Juan de Fuca Straits, 7, 16, 163; 

battle in, 22-24 
"Saving Oregon," 246 
Sea Otter, fur-trading ship, 237 
Seattle, 182; early adventures in, 188- 

196 ; name, 196 ; battle of, 216-223 
Settlers, see Immigrants 
Shark, American warship, 161 



[262] 



INDEX 



"Shining Mountains," 38 

Spalding, Rev. and Mrs., mission- 
aries, 113, 118, 121, 126, 130, 248 

Spanish explorations, 239; claims to 
Oregon, 245 

Spokane, city, beginnings of, 185 

Spokane, Fort, 66; bought by North 
West Company, 72, 185 

Spokane House, 242 

Stevens, Isaac I., Governor, 205; and 
treaties, 206-216 

"Stony Mountains," 36, 38 

"Straits of Anian," 6 

Stuart, of the Astoria Company, 60, 
61, 64 

Sublette, Captain William, and In- 
dians, 129 

Tacoma, 183 

Terry, Lee, pioneer experiences, 188- 

190 
Thompson, David, 242 
Thompson-Henry Journals, 240 
Thorn, Captain Jonathan, of the Ton- 

quin, 48, 52 
Tonquin, 47, 48, 53, 239 
Treaty making with the Indians, 206- 

215 

Vancouver, Captain George, 26, 27 



Vancouver, fur-trading point, 96; 
Fort, building of, 243, and Dr. Mc- 
Loughlin, 96-109; and "Brigade of 
Boats," 101-104; arrival of "home 
ship," 104, 105; life in the fort, 
105-107; productions at, 122; and 
immigrants, 142, 151, 159 

Walla Walla, Fort, danger at, 83-95, 
96; protection in, 127, 138, 140; 
city, 187; treaty council held there, 
206-216 

War of 1812, 72 

Washington Territory, 205, 206 

Webster, Daniel, and the Oregon 
Country, 155, 156, 246 

Whitman, adventures of Rev. and 
Mrs., 113-126, 130, 138; and Ore- 
gon, 154, 1 5 5, 184, 248 

Wilkes, Captain, 106 

Willamette River, 42 

Willamette Valley, missionaries settle 
in, 123 ; character and settlers, 149- 
154; provisional government for, 
153. 158, 249 

Wyeth, Nathaniel, 148, 149, 246, 247 

Yakima Valley, adventures in, 72-83 
Yakima War, 126, 184 



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